It looks a little like things may be going downhill for Oracle, as the next phase of their lawsuit against Google regarding patent infringements in Android's Java implementation from 2007 comes a bit unstuck.
Last month we reported how Oracle had somehow come to the conclusion that this particular infringement, if found to be the case, would have cost them $6.1 billion in lost revenues and damages.
According to Groklaw, the judge on the case decreed that a report of one Professor Cockburn - which concluded that this was the damages required - should be largely dismissed as per Google's motion. This is largely because firstly, the claim represents only a small part of Java and not the whole of it and Android and secondly, that the part in question has not been shown to be a vitally important part of Android. There was a licensing proposal by Sun on the table at one point for $100 million - this is what the judge has recommended as a starting point for future negotiations.
In a further embarrassing development for Oracle, it turns out they have deleted a blog post by then Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz congratulating Google on its announcement of Android and extolling its virtues on the Java community and ecosystem. Fortunately, the Web Archive still have the blog post online.
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