Microsoft's attempts to bring down Android via litigation rather than innovation continued apace today, as the software giant filed another patent lawsuit against an Android client, this time top US bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, which sells the Nook e-reader.

I don't know about you, but I've found it hard to follow the various patent lawsuits involving Apple, Nokia and HTC. First there are so many cases filed all over the place, it's hard to understand the big picture. And I kept asking myself what it was all about. I mean, what's it all about really?

Oracle – the gigantic database corporation that up swallowed Sun Microsystems – has made a wide-ranging patent and copyright infringement complaint (pdf) against the mighty Google Inc. that may or may not indicate that the world will soon end.

Google has vowed to fight Oracle's patent lawsuit over use of Java patents in Android, claiming that Android's Dalvik implementation is not covered. Meanwhile, Java creator James Gosling blogs that neither side in the lawsuit is without blame, but calls the suit a victory for "ego, money and power" at the expense of open software development.

I don't think Oracle suing Google over the use of Java in Android has much to do with Android at all. I think it has everything to do with Oracle monetizing Java anyway it can. That spells big trouble for any company or developer who uses Java...

On the Oracle v. Google litigation announcement, here's something that I don't see anyone else mentioning yet. On the Oracle patents, in a post-Bilski world, the right question would seem to be: Are *any* of the asserted Oracle patents tied to a specific machine?

Just as LinuxCon ended, Oracle announced that it has filed suit for patent and copyright infringement against Google for its implementation of Android; as an Oracle spokesperson said, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. […]”