Judge May Scale Back Oracle’s $6 Billion Damage Demand Against Google | mocoNews

Judge May Scale Back Oracle’s $6 Billion Damage Demand Against Google | mocoNews:

Last month, Oracle Corp. wants Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to pay as much as $6 billion—yes, that’s billion with a B—because it says Google’s Android operating system infringes patents the company got when it purchased Sun Microsystems last year. In a hearing today, Google asked the judge to cut that demand down to size and not let Oracle present its “ridiculous” damage claims to a jury.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the case, appeared to be open to the idea that Oracle had seriously overshot in its damage report. But he also said that Google’s own damage suggestion—that it owed zero damages even if it infringes Oracle patents—was silly as well. “You’re both asking for the moon and you have to be reasonable,” Alsup told an attorney representing Oracle. And while he might pare back Oracle’s big demands, the scaled-back demands still might be enormous, with the potential damages “in the millions, perhaps the billions,” said Alsup.