Oracle focues on past damages in Android dispute

Oracle in documents posted Thursday claimed that its real issue in its dispute over copyrights and patents in Android wasn't its damage requests but to stop Android itself. It argued that Android's just-in-time engine was an "incompatible clone of Java" and that the real issue was Google's damage to the code, which was supposed to be truly cross-platform. Any royalties for future damages would have to come after the case, Oracle said in a copy of the document obtained by Florian Mueller.

Google's changes "undermine Oracle's and many others' investments in 'write once, run anywhere,'" Oracle claimed. "If future royalties are applied, it is well established that they should be based on a separate, post-verdict assessment."

Its court submission further outlined what it saw as Google's owed past damages. Google owed at least $176 million in unpaid patent licenses as well as $102.6 million or more in copyright damages. Google also had to determine how much of a slice of $823.9 million in allegedly infringing revenue it owed by deducting non-related items.

Google as such could owe at least $500 million in past damages and as much as $1 billion. The values also didn't factor in a possible tripling of the values due to laws surrounding willful infringement, which Google may have difficulty avoiding given admissions in court and e-mail evidence that it knew it might have to pay for a license for Java but decided against it regardless. A resulting payment could cost as much as $2 billion if it couldn't get significant deductions from its Android revenue.

Payments would only get higher if Oracle didn't get its hoped-for ban. With Google very unlikely to accept Android being pulled off the market entirely, the company may have little choice but to accept the possibility of paying a royalty for every future Android device sold.

The revelations of a shift away from the presumed cash motivation could make Oracle's lawsuit the most dangerous leveled against Android, even when compared to Apple and Microsoft lawsuits. Their respective complaints are targeted at individual manufacturers and are focused either on changing behavior, such as Apple's view that Samsung is copying the look of the iPhone and iPad, or on extracting a toll to punish a successful competitor, such as in Microsoft's suing or demanding license deals with every Android hardware maker possible to make Windows Phone more attractive.

By Electronista Staff