Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) claims that Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) made $42 billion in revenue from Android Smartphones, and it wants Google to give it a piece of those profits.
Oracle wants to be compensated on the grounds that Google violated copyrights by using Oracle’s Java programming language during the development of Android without a license. A total of 37 Java API packages are claimed to have been infringed upon. The firm’s lawyers have filed a lawsuit seeking a hefty $9.3 billion in compensation. A Federal appeals court has already confirmed that the API packages were indeed under copyright protection.
Google is not going down without a fight however, and it has presented an argument claiming fair use. Oracle’s legal representative, Peter Bicks, however, claims that the company is using fair use as an excuse to get away with the copyright violation. Bicks addressed the claim in front of a jury of ten individuals at the San Francisco District Court. He argued that Google deliberately decided not to apply for a license and instead use Oracle’s software without legal authorization.
Google’s argument also includes a claim that the Oracle APIs that it used were just a section of the entire code that it used to create the OS. The software and tech company also claims that the programming language was also used in a transformative manner. The Android OS maker also claims that Sun Microsystems which was the firm that created Java before it was acquired by Oracle did not oppose Google using the code.
The defensive argument was brought forward by Google’s lawyer Robert Van Nest, who also told the members of the Jury that Java is free to anyone. Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt, who is currently the chairman of Alphabet, was the first witness to take the stand. He stated that it was permissible to use the programming language without necessitating a license. The case is expected to continue, and Schmidt will be called again on Wednesday.