Oracle may only get $150,000 in damages from Google

Oracle's situation in its intellectual property legal battle against Google is looking more bleak by the day.

At one point in time, Oracle was trying to go after Google with the intent to receive up to $6bn (£3.7bn) in damages. Slowly that figure has dwindled down to somewhere around $1bn and then a few hundred million.

Now, it looks like Oracle could end up with just $150,000 — if anything at all given that the threat of a mistrial looms and the trial is still in the middle of its second phase, covering patent infringement.

Judge William Alsup warned Oracle at the US District Court of Northern California on Thursday morning that the "most" the plaintiff might end up with is statutory damages over the nine lines of code in the rangeCheck method — the only item on the verdict form during phase one of the trial in which the jury found Google's conceded use was copyright infringement.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Oracle might only receive $150,000 in damages from Google on ZDNet.com.