Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) declared its support for Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) in its legal battle against Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) after the company filed submitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday, according to a report from Thomson Reuters News & Insights.
According to the report, the software giant backs Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL)’s petition to revive its copyright lawsuit related to the search engine giant’s use of its Java programming language.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) said it would support Oracle with a friend of the court brief, and it retained the services Gregory Garre, a former U.S. solicitor general as principal attorney. Garre is a partner at Latham & Watkins law firm.
Earlier this week, Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) argued in its appeals brief that the judge made a mistake in dismissing its case against Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG).
The company emphasized, “Copyright protects a short poem or even a Chinese menu or jingle. But the copied works here were vastly more original, creative, and labor-intensive,” referring to its Java programming language.
During the trial, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) argued Oracle cannot copyright APIs for Java because it is an open-source or publicly available software language, therefore it did not violate the company’s patents.
The judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco ruled in favor of Google citing that Oracle’s copyright claim against the search engine giant’s use of Java language on its Android operating system has no merit. The judge made its decision after a jury concluded Oracle’s APIs were not eligible for copyright protection under U.S. law.
Oracle Corporation reiterated in its filing last Monday that, “Nothing about Google’s use was fair,” and emphasized that encouraged the court to continue to find out whether the search engine giant infringed its copyrighted work. The company said, “A remand to decide fair use is pointless.
On the other hand, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has are fighting in courts around the world on technology patents. The software giant alleged that its rival’s Android operating system violated its intellectual property. I
n May last year, a court in Germany ruled that Google’s subsidiary, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) infringed Microsoft’s patent for using its text messaging technology in Android devices in the country.
