Google missed out of an opportunity to keep an engineer’s e-mail saying the company should negotiate a license for the Java programming language out of an Oracle Corp. lawsuit. He had an allegation in the said e-mail, which noted that Google software infringes Java patents.
Google, at a trial earlier, had noted U.S. District Judge William Alsup saying that Google would be “on the losing end of this document”. Today the ruling has come out in San Francisco, which notes that the electronic message isn’t subject to attorney-client confidentiality protection. Saying so, he made an inclusion of the text of the email in his ruling.
Things look worse for Google as the Googler Tim Lindholm made a mistake, with a statement he made in the e-mail. He had said, “We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need”. Google software engineer Tim Lindholm had said it in the 2010 message to a company lawyer and Andy Rubin, who was vice president in charge of the company’s Android operating system for mobile devices.
The e-mail details that the engineer was working on looking out for alternatives, which was asked for by the Google co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. It details that the co-founders wanted him to “investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android.”
For Oracle, it can be the golden egg, as the company can use the document to convince many that Google had knowledge about it infringing patents on Java. The patents as said have been violated, since it has been used as a language to develop its Android. Android OS is currently running on more than 150 million devices. The sale of the devices can be blocked, as Oracle is seeking a court order to block sales of Android devices.
Oracle, has a brief history with the case against Google as it acquired the conflicting patents when it bought Sun Microsystems Inc. As soon as it had acquired the said patents, it sued Google claiming Android infringes Java technology. According to Alsup’s ruling, Oracle sued Google six days after Lindholm sent the e-mail. For the claim, the Redwood City, California-based company is seeking at least $1 billion for lost license fees.
Google’s attempts to keep the e-mail off the case, had many things noting as the search engine giant even said that the drafts of the e-mail were mistakenly turned over to Oracle during document exchanges. The mail had Lindholm even noting, “We think there is value in the negotiation to put forward our most credible alternative, the goal being to get better terms and price for Java.” But that couldn’t happen and Google failed to license Java.
The spokespersons of the respective companies preferred declining to comment on the matter, may it be Jim Prosser, a Google spokesman or Deborah Hellinger, an Oracle spokeswoman. Jim was sent a voice-mail, to which there was no immediate response.
, didn’t immediately respond to a voice-mail message seeking comment about Alsup’s ruling. Deborah Hellinger, an Oracle spokeswoman, declined to comment on the decision.
The case is Oracle America Inc. v. Google Inc., 10-03561, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).