In 2010, enterprise software giant Oracle sued Google over the way Android made use of the Java programming language. Oracle had assumed control of Java a year earlier, after purchasing one-time tech powerhouse Sun Microsystems, and its suit claimed that Google had infringed on Java-related patents and copyrights. But the case turned up documents that would help spark a very different investigation in the Europe.
The trial revealed various contracts in which Google required phone makers to bundle certain Google services when using its Android operating system, such as Google Search, Google Maps, and the Google app store (a.k.a. Google Play)—and bundle them at the expense of other services from third parties. These contracts—which had been discussed in the press and behind closed doors for years—became the basis for an antitrust complaint brought to the EU by FairSearch, a consortium of companies that includes Oracle, Microsoft, Nokia, and many others, alleging that Google’s Android practices are anti-competitive.
“One way in which this case was helped forward was the trial between Oracle and Google,” says Dieter Paemen, a Brussels-based lawyer with the multi-national law firm Clifford Chance, who represents FairSearch and was part of the team that filed the complaint in the EU. “The core evidence comes—originally—from there.”
Paeman and FairSearch filed their complaint in April 2013. A Portuguese company called Aptoide lodged an additional complaint more than a year later. And this month, the European Commission announced that it’s opening a formal investigation into Android, indicating that it’s probing the kinds of contracts that surfaced during the Oracle trial.
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