Cynic is right that the case does seem to have some merit, but the guess as to how it happened is way off. Google and Sun were in talks back in 07 when Google announced Android (http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/110/), they couldn't work things out and Google decided to use Dalvik as their middleware instead of Java (Dalvik is not Java but is very similar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_%28software%29). So then sun is pissed and having money problems, so they (Schwartz) go shopping for someone to buy them with the "sell" being that "if you buy us, you can sue Google." (http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Aug-13.html) And of course, Oracle laywers were already licking their lips as soon as they got the chance. Basically, there is no "good guy" here, Google knew they were avoiding the license with Dalvik, Sun knew that there were issues with JavaME licensing but wanted to "play innocent," and of course Oracle will not miss a chance to sue, take-over, or otherwise destroy the competition. This is a battle of egos, and in the end we all lose (no innovation, no cheaper/better products).

I think this is good news. Oracle is willing to test 7 software patents in court. Google after all has all the data it needs to cry "prior art". You only have to trawl through things like DEC's VMS's loader, Microsoft's DCOM and pcode and DEC's Alpha emulator to start to see possible ancestors.

The whole software patent issue aside for a moment, Oracle does have a bit of a case IMO. They came up with the IP, and for better or for worse have patents on it. The IP can essentially be freely be used as part of a GPL'd JVM implementation. Google did a bit of an "embrace and extend" on Java to come up with Dalvik, but made sure not to call it Java to avoid the problems MS had. As a result, they don't have a license to use the IP.

My guess is that Oracle wanted Google to switch to a full JVM, and Google refused. So Oracle went rummaging through their patent stash for some pointy sticks for persuasion.

Why do they always ask for in injunction. We all know it's not gonna happen plus it's not like Android is directly competing with Oracle's database software.