Google's Official Position on Oracle Allegations

Google filed its answer to the responsible court this week in reference to the Oracle lawsuit, which claims that the Android OS infringed on Java licenses by using a modified version of the JVM for Android's Dalvik VM.  Here's the document:

Google Answer and Counterclaims v. Oracle (Filed)

Oracle has accused Google of violating seven Sun patents including:  6,125,447, 6,192,476, 5,966,702, 7,426,720, RE38,104, 6,910,205 and 6,061,520.  Google denies that it infringes on these patents and asks the presiding judge to invalidate them.  Google has called Oracle's actions an attack on the entire open source community.  A spokesperson recently pointed out the hypocrisy of Oracle's criticism when Sun would not release official TCKs under open source, but now they won't fully open source the Java platform themselves.

In the document above, Google argues that Sun made provisions saying that the JVM could be modified for custom implementations.  They also say that Android is important for the Java community because it has promoted the language with a fast-growing mobile platform.

Oracle's Debora Hellinger responded to the document saying:

“In developing Android, Google chose to use Java code without obtaining a license. Additionally, it modified the technology so it is not compliant with Java’s central design principle to “write once and run anywhere.” Google’s infringement and fragmentation of Java code not only damages Oracle, it clearly harms consumers, developers and device manufacturers.”

For further evidence of the tangled litgation-web that the mobile industry weaves, check out the "Who's Suing Whom?" chart.

Any thoughts on this new development?