Oracle Wants 'Billions of Dollars' from Google in Lawsuit over Smartphone Patent

In the latest competitive twist in Silicon Valley, Oracle Corporation ORCL is seeking damages in the "billions of dollars" in its lawsuit against Google GOOG over a smartphone patent. A court filing unsealed Thursday showed for the first time how much Oracle was seeking in its lawsuit against Google. According to a Reuters report, "Oracle sued Google last year, claiming the Web search company's Android mobile operating technology infringes Oracle's Java patents. Oracle bought the Java programing language through its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in January 2010." The popularity of the smartphone market has led to increasing litigation in recent years. Apple AAPL recently settled a lawsuit with Nokia NOK over a smartphone patent. U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered Google on Thursday to make public the damages information by Friday, despite requests to keep that information private. Court filings show that Oracle accused Google of trying to hide the potential damages it faced. The Reuters report notes that "Google has called an Oracle damages report 'unreliable and results-oriented,' and asked a U.S. judge in San Francisco to ignore it, court documents show. In disputing Oracle's methodology, Google also asked the court to keep private some damages information Google disclosed in a court filing." Some analysts point toward the lawsuit as an indication of Oracle's efforts to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded technology market.