Google disputes damages estimate in Oracle case

05.07.2011
Google has asked a California court to throw out the testimony of an expert witness who said Google should pay Oracle as much as US$6 billion for allegedly infringing on Java patents and copyright.

"His methodology is grounded only in a desire to maximize Oracle's damages," given by Iain Cockburn, the Boston University professor Oracle called as a damages expert.

The case, filed last year in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, centers on Google's alleged use of Oracle patents in the virtual machine it built to run Java apps in Android devices. Since Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems, it now controls the use of Java.

Earlier this year, Cockburn estimated that Google would owe Oracle between $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion if it were found to infringe on Oracle's Java patents. In June, Google sent a letter to the court .

On Tuesday, Google laid out in more detail a number of issues it sees with Cockburn's estimates, including that he based his estimates on Google's gains from Android as a whole, rather than from just the alleged infringing technology.

He also includes Google's Android advertising revenue even though Oracle doesn't allege that Google ads infringe the relevant patents, Google wrote in the filing.