Oracle Rejects $3 Million Offer from Google in Patent Infringement Dispute

California – Tech giant Oracle has rejected a three million dollar settlement offer from Google in an ongoing patent infringement lawsuit where Oracle is alleging that Google’s Android operating system is infringing its Java patents.

In addition to the $3 million offer, Google was also willing to pay Oracle one percent of revenue from its Android platform, which was also rejected by Oracle. It has been reported that Oracle is seeking billions of dollars in damages for the alleged infringement.

With its settlement attempts turned down, the two companies will present their cases in front of a federal grand jury later this month.

“Oracle cannot agree to Google’s proposal that Oracle waive its constitutional right to a jury trial,” stated lawyers for Oracle in a court document filed last week. They added, “Although there are issues for the Court to decide, there are substantial questions for the jury as well.”

The original patent infringement claims against Google were filed back in August 2010, and alleged that the maker of the Android operating system “knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property” and sought “appropriate remedies.” The specific patent at issue involves the technology for the Dalvik virtual machine used in the Android systems.

Google has challenged Oracle’s claims of patent infringement and has used the argument that it had rights to use the Java patents in a pre-existing agreement with Sun Microsystems, who developed and owned the patents before the company was acquired by Oracle in April 2009.

Earlier this year, the most widely-used web-based search engine in the world suffered a major setback in the lawsuit when its bid to have an incriminating company email dismissed from evidence was denied by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The email was sent between Google engineers and strongly suggested that Google was indeed infringing the Java patents and that it should negotiate a licensing deal with Oracle, because no other technologies would be appropriate for use with Android and Chrome.

Both Oracle and Google denied to further comment on the issue.