Google generated $22 billion in profit and $31 billion in revenue from its Android operating system, according to Bloomberg citing a statement from the lawyer of Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) during a court hearing.
Oracle’s lawyer, Annette Hurst based her statement regarding Google’s profit and revenue from the Android operating system from the search engine giant’s confidential internal financial documents.
Google, which is now operating under the umbrella of its parent holding company, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) said Oracle should not have disclosed the figures to the public.
Oracle’s lawyer disclosed Google’s information regarding the financial performance of Android operating system on January 24 in connection with the Java copyright lawsuit. Oracle claimed that Google violated its copyright for using its Java programming to develop the Android operating system without paying any license fee.
Atty. Hurst told the federal judge, “Look at the extraordinary magnitude of commerciality here” while discussing Google profit and revenue from its mobile operating system. The search engine giant is making money from the Android operating system through the advertisements showing on mobile devices and through mobile apps sold on Google Play.
Google asks court to redact “extremely sensitive information”
On January 20, Google requested the federal judge in San Francisco to redact and seal portion of the transcript of the court hearing last week. The search engine giant said Oracle’s lawyer improperly revealed “extremely sensitive information” from documents that were marked “Attorney’s Eyes Only.”
“Google does not publicly allocate revenues or profits to Android separate and apart from Google’s general business. That non-public financial data is highly sensitive, and public disclosure could have significant negative effects on Google’s business,” said the search engine giant in a filing.
Oracle is seeking $9 billion in damages from Google
In May 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that application programming interfaces (APIs), the computer language that connects program are eligible for copyright protection. The Appeals Court reverse the previous ruling of a federal judge in San Francisco that Oracle cannot claim copyright protection on parts of the Java software integrated in Google’s mobile operating system.
The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the lower court with an instruction to reinstate the finding of the jury that Google violated Oracles copyright on 37 Java APIs, and to conduct further proceedings to determine whether the search engine giant’s actions were protected under the fair use of the technology.
Oracle is seeking more than $9 billion in damages because it extended its claims that cover newer versions of the Android operating system.
Google argued that Oracle cannot copyright the APIs for Java because it is an open-source software language, therefore it did not commit any copyright infringement.
