Oracle Seeking Up to $6.1 Billion in Google Patent Lawsuit

In its patent infringement lawsuit against Google GOOG, software maker Oracle ORCL is seeking between $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion in damages, a court filing revealed. Oracle filed suit against Google last year, claiming that its Android mobile operating technology infringes on Oracle's Java patents. Financial damages were not released publicly until recently. U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered Google to make the damages public, favoring Oracle's ORCL argument that Google was intentionally trying to avoid the release of potential damages. The popularity of the smartphone market has led to increasing litigation in recent years. Apple AAPL just settled a lawsuit with Nokia NOK over a smartphone patent. Google disagrees with the damages that Oracle is seeking, calling it "a breathtaking figure that is out of proportion to any meaningful measure of the intellectual property at issue." Oracle owns the Java programing language by way of its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in January 2010. Oracle develops and sells and services database and middleware software, applications software and hardware systems, consisting primarily of computer server and storage products.