Last night it surfaced that Oracle is suing Google over the Dalvik Java implementation in Android. In particular Oracle claims that Google infringes on 7 Java-related patents which they had acquired with the company Sun, the original inventor of Java. Earlier negotiations between Google and Oracle seem to have failed.
More details:
- Oracle uses James Gosling patent to attack Google and Android developers (by Ed Burnette, zdnet.com)
- Comment by James Gosling (Father of Java, he received one of the patents)
- Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android (arstechnica.com)
- Comment thread at HN
- Discussion at Android Developers mailing list
The exact patents Oracle claims to be infringed:
- #6,125,447: Protection domains to provide security in a computer system; Li Gong
- #6,192,476: Controlling access to a resource; Li Gong
- #5,966,702: Method and apparatus for pre-processing and packaging class files; Nedim Fresko, Richard Tuck
- #7,426,720: System and method for dynamic preloading of classes through memory space cloning of a master runtime system process; Nedim Fresko
- #RE38,104: Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code; James Gosling
- #6,910,205: Interpreting functions utilizing a hybrid of virtual and native machine instructions; Lars Bak, Robert Griesemer
- #6,061,520: Method and system for performing static initialization; Frank Yellin, Richard Tuck