Page and Ellison to meet as Oracle and Google look to settle Android-Java dispute

Google and Oracle chief executives Larry Page and Larry Ellison are to meet on Monday in an effort to prevent the long-running Android-Java dispute from going to court.

The talks will take place at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, after Oracle requested Google to send someone other than senior vice president of Google mobile Andy Rubin.

The meeting represents the best chance to reach a settlement in the case so far, according to software patent specialist Florian Mueller.

"There's a reasonable chance that Larry Page will show the strong leadership he's demonstrated since taking over the helm and make Larry Ellison an offer too good to refuse: a ton of money in exchange for a perpetual licence," he said on the Foss Patents blog.

"The side effect of encouraging other patent holders to expect similar pay-offs is inevitable, but not a reason not to do what needs to be done."

Mueller believes that a settlement will probably be in Google's best interests, and that the court may order further meetings before the end of the month if an agreement is not reached today.

"Google's chances of getting out of this lawsuit unscathed are rather slim. Oracle probably wouldn't win a trial on all counts, but it's highly likely to win on at least some of them, and quite probably the counts on which Oracle would prevail would be powerful enough," he said.

Oracle had originally demanded $2bn to $6bn in damages, after alleging that Android infringed on technology used in Java.

However, a US judge told Oracle to lower its claim after it was revealed that Google rejected the chance to pay Sun Microsystems $100m to license the Java platform when it was developing Android.

Google completed the purchase of over 1,000 patents from IBM last week, several of which relate to Java, to help defend Android.

If the executives fail to reach a settlement, the case will go to trial. The date has yet to be confirmed, but previous court filings suggest 31 October.