The battle between Oracle and Google is a sordid saga, with each side making its own appeal to the court system.  This last week has been especially thrilling, with emerging emails that make Google look horrible, written support of Android’s Java use by Sun’s CEO, and Google’s latest acquisition of IBM patents to help its defense.

Several potentially damaging emails could make things rough for Google if the patent infringement lawsuit Oracle has brought against the search engine is tried, particularly in front of a jury. Google may face an uphill battle defending itself in a jury trial against Oracle if some particularly damning emails are introduced at trial.

Judge William Alsup was recently informed of several emails written by Google engineers occurring between 2005 and 2010.  One of these emails from 2005, by Andy Rubin, the ‘father’ of Android, doesn’t reflect well on Google’s tactics for dealing with IP issues:

“If Sun doesn’t want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language – or – 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way.”

And in an August 2010 email from Google engineer Tim Lindholm to Rubin, Lindholm wrote:

“What we’ve actually been asked to do (by Larry and Sergey) is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We’ve been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need.”

Lindholm would be in a position to know. He was a distinguished engineer in Java while at Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired in 2010, gaining Java in the deal.  Lindholm also worked as part of the original Java development team at Sun, and was an original member of Sun’s Java Products Group.  Lindholm also is very likely one of the individuals Oracle is talking about when it says in its complaint against Google:

“On information and belief, Google has been aware of Sun’s patent portfolio, including the patents at issue, since the middle of this decade, when Google hired certain former Sun Java engineers.”

Would this evidence motivate Google to settle?  Maybe not, but Judge Alsup seems pretty confident in Oracle’s chances.  Alsup commented after he had read these emails that it seemed like Google would rather “roll the dice” on litigation with Java.

In a hearing late last week, District Court Judge William Alsup informed both sides that they are “both asking for the moon and should be more reasonable.” The judge questioned Oracle‘s estimate that Google had caused damages between $1.6-$6.1 billion, considering the fact that the lawyer who came up with that figure had been paid $700 an hour by Oracle to do so.  At the same time, he scoffed at Google’s claims that the money it’s made through advertising on Android devices has no relation to the Android operating system. Google’s counter to Oracle’s $6.1 billion claim was to argue that Android was essentially valueless and that it therefore couldn’t owe Oracle any money.