Oracle and Google head into retrial over Java in Android

It seems that despite a lengthy meeting to settle the ongoing lawsuit between Google and Oracle concerning the use of certain part of Oracle’s software in Android, the two companies were unable to reach an agreement in the copyright lawsuit.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Oracle CEO Safra Catz, together with other executives from both companies, met on Friday to try and reach and agreement to settle the lawsuit that Oracle filed originally in 2012. Google strongly disagrees that it owes Oracle upward of $8 billion for allegedly infringing copyright by using certain parts of Oracle’s programming language Java in Android.

The next phase will be for a court to hear the case in May since an agreement couldn’t be made between the two companies. A jury will then decide if Google had the right to use those certain parts of Java in Android for free, or if Google owes Oracle money for the privilege.

“After an earlier run at settling this case failed, the court observed that some cases just need to be tried,” the court docket reads. “This case apparently needs to be tried twice. However unsuccessful, the court appreciates the parties’ settlement efforts earlier today — especially those of Ms. Catz and Mr. Pichai.”

This one certainly seems long from over and is of no surprise it needs to go to the courts to decide the outcome. Whether that is the most appropriate way to reach an agreement for what is undoubtedly touching on the technical and low-level workings of Android is a different question entirely.