Oh Android, you just can’t seem to keep your nose clean. Everywhere you go you are picking fights. You’re like that kid in school who just HAS to go pissing people off, even if you haven’t done anything wrong today. Well, that’s not my opinion, but it certainly seems to be that of the companies that have lined up in recent months to take a shot at Google over Android. Let’s see… Oracle, Apple, Microsoft, and who else? Gemalto? Who are they, and why are they glaring at Android like that? Circle around kids, it’s time for another schoolyard fight.
Don’t lie, you don’t know who Gemalto is, either. They are a Germany based International Digital Security company. Among their bag of tricks is a patent regarding “Java Card technology” which allows “applications developed in other high level programming languages to run on resource-constrained devices such as smart cards and mobile phones.” The general complaint is that this technology is used in Dalvik, the Virtual Machine on which all flavors of Android run on top of, as well as Android itself. The Infringement suit also calls out Motorola, HTC, and Samsung as users of this technology. My assumption is that these three got called out separately due to their custom flavors of Android, otherwise known as Blur, SenseUI, and TouchWIZ.
Google has yet to respond, though personally I do not think they are concerned. My biggest issue with this case is the timeframe. Android is working on year two of its public face, and if they are using these Java Cards, they have been the whole time. Why the delay? What makes now more infringey than before? The information available right now is sketchy at best, and hopefully Google’s response will provide a more in depth answer. Until then, this fight isn’t very interesting to watch, is it?
