Oracle kicks off busy trial season against Google

Oracle is set to go to trial next week against Google in a high-stakes dispute over smartphone technology.

The trial is the biggest case in what is shaping up to be an intense year in court for the enterprise software giant.

Jury selection is set for today in a San Francisco federal court. Oracle claims Google's Android operating system tramples on its intellectual property rights to the Java programming language. Google says it doesn't violate Oracle's patents, and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java.

The case is the first of four big tech trials involving Oracle scheduled for the next few months - three in Northern California, and one in Nevada.

The others include one set for the end of May against Hewlett-Packard over the Itanium microprocessor, a retrial against SAP AG in June over alleged copyright infringement, and another copyright case against smaller competitor Rimini Street expected later in the year.

Fighting so many court battles back-to-back could be distracting for Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison and other top executives, not to mention costly, as legal fees pile up.

Yet, observers say it's not surprising that Oracle would be so aggressive in court, pointing to Ellison's reputation as unyielding. He once sued the city of San Jose - and won - when it tried to impose a curfew on his private jet.

And while risky, Oracle's strategy could pay off if it succeeds in winning damages at trial, particularly in the Google case given the growing market for Android-powered devices.

"The real question is, does Oracle get a piece of Android, or not?" said Tyler Ochoa, a copyright professor at Santa Clara Law in Silicon Valley. "The money is so large we can see why they are willing to spend a lot of money fighting over it."

An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment about how the multiple trials impact top management.

Oracle sued Google in August 2010 over seven patents for Java, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. Early on, damages estimates ran as high as $6.1 billion. But Google has narrowed Oracle's claims so that only two patents remain, reducing the possible damages that could be awarded.

Oracle is seeking roughly $1 billion in copyright damages. On the two patents, it rejected Google's $2.8 million settlement offer, plus 0.5 percent of Android revenue on one patent until it expires this December and 0.015 percent on a second patent until it expires in April 2018.

In October, Google said its mobile business was generating revenue at an annual run rate of $2.5 billion, but that includes revenue from ads Google serves on Android devices as well as on Apple's iPhone.

The settlement talks reached an impasse, a magistrate judge who is a mediator in the case recently said, though a last-minute deal is always a possibility.