Judge sets March court date for Oracle and Google showdown

US Federal Court Judge William Alsup has scheduled a trial date for the ongoing patent infringement case between Oracle and Google.

The case will go before a jury on or after 19 March 2012, five months after the case was originally scheduled to go to trial.

The jury will consider both copyright and patent infringement claims from Oracle regarding Google's use of patented technologies related to the Java platform. The case had originally been scheduled to go before a jury in October 2011, but delays from scheduling conflicts and other cases had forced Judge Alsup to postpone the trial.

Intellectual property (IP) law expert Florian Mueller said the March date was something of a compromise, but one that favoured Oracle.

"Oracle recently urged the court to resolve this matter as soon as possible and would have liked the trial to start, ideally from Oracle's perspective, this month," Mueller explained in a blog post.

"Google indicated that a trial date in the summer was more realistic."

The jury case will mark the next step in the ongoing patent war between the two companies. Oracle has accused Google of violating its Java patents with the use of code in the Dalvik virtual machine component of its Android mobile platform.

Google has long maintained it is not in violation of any patents. The company has accused Oracle of going back on promises it made to further open up the Java platform to developers.

The case is now entering its third calendar year, despite numerous attempts by both companies and third parties to negotiate a settlement deal.