Oracle’s threat to Google mobile push

The legal war over software rights that Oracle launched against Google late on Thursday could hamper the internet company’s successful push into the smartphone market, industry analysts warned on Friday.

Oracle’s aggressive move was also a “nuclear deterrent” that would spread much more widely across the mobile devices industry, with long-term implications for many handset makers and carriers, said Mark Driver, an analyst at Gartner.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, accuses Google of patent and copyright infringement over the inclusion of parts of Oracle’s Java software in its Android smartphone operating system.

Android, which Google makes available free of charge, has been taken up by handset makers including Motorola and HTC, and in the most recent quarter phones carrying the software overtook Apple’s iPhone in global sales.

Oracle acquired rights to Java, a set of tools that make it easier for software developers to write applications that run on many different operating systems, as part of its purchase of Sun Microsystems earlier this year.

The lawsuit shows that Oracle will seek to make more money from the rights to the widely used Java than Sun did, analysts said.

“You’re definitely going to get a stronger licence enforcement policy – and rightly so, perhaps,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst at IDC.

The lawsuit also serves as a warning to handset makers that are using Android and could tilt the balance in favour of other operating systems, including Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software, which is due to be launched later this year, Mr Hilwa said.

If Google is forced to pay Oracle for the use of its technology, it could lead it to charge for Android, also making the software less attractive to handset makers, he added.

Many handset makers already have a licence that allows them to use Java. The prospect that Android would continue to grow fast raised the danger for Oracle that it would lose its power to charge a royalty on many new handsets, said Mr Driver.

However, some experts also warned that Oracle’s lawsuit could backfire, encouraging companies to look for alternatives to the Java technology.

At the time it bought Sun, Oracle executives said they would tread carefully in how they exercised their Java rights, since a heavy-handed approach could undermine the software’s standing as a de facto industry standard.

Legal battles over patents are rare between the technology industry’s leading players. Most maintain large portfolios of rights and have enough mutual self-interest to agree broad cross-licensing deals that give companies access to each others’ patents.

Oracle’s attack on Google highlights the internet company’s relatively weak patent portfolio, Mr Driver said.