Oracle is accusing Google's chief legal officer of leading a 'coercion campaign' to pressure groups not to support it in their Supreme Court brawl

• Oracle is accusing Google's chief legal officer of waging a "coercion campaign" aimed at pressuring companies and groups not to endorse its position in their Supreme Court battle.
• Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck, the tech giant's point man in Washington DC, said Kent Walker, Google's head of global affairs, reached out to "more than half a dozen" parties "to persuade them to stay silent" on the legal dispute.
• Oracle is accusing Google of copyright infringement and stealing a key component of its Java technology to build the Android operating system.
• Google rejects the charge, saying Oracle cannot copyright the code, known as APIs, or application programming interfaces - which allows programs to talk to each other. The tech giants are scheduled to face off before the Supreme Court on March 24.
• Google responded to Oracle's claims by pointing to the groups that have endorsed its position, including IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat and various groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Oracle's has been endorsed by the Trump Administration and various groups including the Motion Picture Association and the Association of American Publishers.
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Oracle said Google has resorted to bullying tactics as they gear up for their legal brawl before the US Supreme Court in March.

Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck said Thursday that Google chief legal officer, Kent Walker, waged a "coercion campaign" aimed at pressuring companies and groups not to endorse its position in their Supreme Court battle.

Oracle is accusing Google of copyright infringement and stealing a key component of its Java technology to build the Android operating system. Google rejects the charge, saying Oracle cannot copyright the code, known as APIs, or application programming interfaces - which allows programs to talk to each other.

The tech giants are scheduled to face off before the Supreme Court on March 24.

Glueck, the tech giant's point man in Washington DC, said in a blog post that Walker, who is also Google head of global affairs, "led a coercion campaign against companies and organizations that were likely to file on Oracle's behalf to persuade them to stay silent."

"We are aware of more than half a dozen contacts by Mr. Walker (or his representatives) … but we probably only heard of a small piece of his efforts," he wrote.

Google responded to Oracle's claims by pointing to the groups that have endorsed its position. "A remarkable range of consumers, developers, computer scientists, and businesses agree that open software interfaces promote innovation and that no single company should be able to monopolize creativity by blocking software tools from working together," spokesperson Jose Castaneda told Business Insider in an email.

Google's position has been endorsed by more than two dozen groups and companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Oracle has also earned the support of more than two dozen parties, led by the Trump Administration through Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the Motion Picture Association, the Association of American Publishers and tech executive Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems which originally created Java.

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