Better late than never I suppose. It looks like Oracle has finally completed some copyright research and found out that Google’s Android operating system uses a little language called Java that they picked up with the Sun Microsystems purchase earlier this year. Oracle issued a press release saying that Google’s Android and the Dalvik Virtual Machine infringes on 7 US patents.

There is no word on the exact technical details of the patents, but Oracle did say that,

“Google has been aware of Sun’s patent portfolio, including the patents at issue, since the middle of this decade, when Google hired certain former Sun Java engineers.”

When developers and engineers fight over this intellectual property stuff, it sure does get ugly. Google has not had a chance to respond to the claims of the suit as they have not yet been served. This looks like it’s going to be one of those ugly, drawn-out intellectual property fights that will eventually become so confusing and expensive for both sides that it wasn’t really worth the fight to begin with.

There is not much more to say at this point as the story is developing so we will keep a look out on any official word from Google.

Via [CNET]