The litigation battle between Google and Oracle continues to heat up. The search giant fired the latest volley with a filing that outlines twenty separate defenses against Oracle's claim that Google's Android mobile platform infringes intellectual property that Oracle obtained from Sun. Google argues that no infringement has transpired, and that it isn't responsible even if evidence of actual infringement is found.
This dispute erupted in August when Oracle sued Google over its use of the Java programming language in Android, even though Java is ostensibly an open language and Google uses its own clean-room implementation. Oracle grants a license to the necessary intellectual property to developers who can demonstrate their Java implementations conform with Java standards. Oracle has, however, refused to provide the requisite compatibility test suite under terms that are acceptable to third-party Java implementors—including the Harmony project, which Google relies on for its Java library stack.
This issue has become deeply controversial, because policies of the Java Community Process—with which Oracle is contractually obligated to comply—require the company to supply the Java test suites under terms that don't preclude third-party open source implementations. Oracle's actions are actively undermining the pretense that Java is an open language. On the other hand, critics of Android point out that Android's unapologetic deviation from Java standards threatens to fragment the language.