Oracle has filed a federal copyright lawsuit alleging Google’s popular Android operating system was built on Oracle’s Java software without permission. Oracle’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, accuses Google of infringing on patents and copyrights that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems earlier this year.
While Google had no immediate comment, one analyst called the lawsuit surprising because Sun, whose engineers developed Java, decided several years ago to release key elements of the widely used programming language under an open-source license which allows others to use it freely.
Android is used by several computer manufacturers as the operating system that runs smartphones and other computing devices. Its growth in the first half of 2010 has been enormous. And it is now the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States, and is on the verge of becoming the second most popular in the world, closing in on Research In Motion’s Blackberry. All four major U.S. wireless carriers now offer smartphones powered by Android.
Android’s growth means more search revenue for Google, as consumers use their smartphones to search the web. Google does not break out its revenue from mobile search, but Google searches from Android devices grew by 300 percent during the first half of 2010
With the first Android phone, the T-Moble G1 which went on sale in October 2008, Android phones are now available in about 50 different countries.
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