After Oracle revealed that it’s seeking $9.3 billion in damages from Google over the tech giant’s alleged unlicensed use of Java code in all of the versions of Android OS up to Marshmallow, everyone’s been waiting for settlement talks between the two parties to commence. Oracle and Google have been in a legal battle over alleged Java infringement for six years now and have already been to trial in 2012. A new trial has been scheduled for May 9th and according to latest reports, it’s definitely happening, as both companies have already attempted to negotiate a settlement and failed to come to an agreement.
The consensus was likely hard to reach because Oracle is seeking only $475 million in actual damages while the remaining $8.83 billion of the requested compensation is related to profits Google made from Android apps and ads. Google naturally isn’t too keen on trusting its plaintiff’s damages expert and even though it hasn’t publicized its own idea of an acceptable fee, it’s presumably significantly lower than that. So much lower that the only consensus the parties reached after a six-hour meeting that took place on Friday was that they are definitely going to court. Both companies’ CEOs, i.e. Google’s Sundar Pichai and Oracle’s Safra Catz were present at the said meeting together with their lawyers.
This was allegedly the second attempt at a settlement by the companies after it was announced that a retrial is scheduled in May, but it seems they are destined for another legal battle. In the meantime, Google has already announced that it’s already ditching Java in favor of OpenJDK as of Android N, so if anything, we can at least be sure that the aforementioned claim of $9.3 billion is definitely not going to increase in the future. As for realistic outcomes of this trial, if Google loses and the estimates of damages between the two continue to vary as greatly as they apparently do now – and there’s no reason to believe otherwise – the tech giant can probably expect to pay about half of what Oracle is demanding as that’s how juries tend to settle such disputes. As for how long the latest trial will take – only time will tell.