Google 'strongly disagrees' that it could owe Oracle more than $8 billion

Google objects to the sky-high sum that Oracle is claiming in the ongoing copyright lawsuit between the two companies. 

In Google's latest filing, the search giant says that its damages expert "strongly disagrees" with the assessment that it could owe Oracle "no less than $8.8 billion" for its use of certain parts of the programming language Java in its Android operating system. 

The next phase of the case is about to head to court. A jury will decide if Google had the right to use certain parts of Oracle's programming language, Java, for free, or if it owes Oracle damages for its use that has been going on for years. 

Google says that Dr. James Kearl, the damages expert that the court hired, came up with the "no less than $8.8 billion" value by taking Oracle's theory on how to calculate how much Google owed "at face value."

Kearl came up with that number based on a calculation of the amount of profits that Google earned as a result of Android, which Google doesn't report, but the company says that "several of [Kearl's] opinions on disgorgement are ungrounded in the facts of the case or based on improper analytical frameworks."

You can read the whole filing here: