By Dan Levine
Feb 19 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is backing Oracle Corp's bid to revive a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit over Google's use of the Java programming language, according to court filings on Tuesday.
Oracle's intellectual property battle against Google has attracted intense interest from software developers, many of whom believe the structure of a programming language should not be subject to copyright protection.
Last year a San Francisco federal judge found that Oracle could not claim copyright protection on much of the Java language that Google used on its Android mobile platform. Oracle has appealed.
Microsoft, the world's largest software firm, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday it would support Oracle with a friend of the court brief. Microsoft hired Gregory Garre, a former U.S. solicitor general who is now a partner at Latham & Watkins, as its principal attorney, court filings show.
Representatives for Microsoft and Google declined to comment, and an Oracle spokeswoman could not be reached for comment. A copy of Microsoft's legal brief was not immediately available on the Federal Circuit's docket.
Microsoft has been litigating against Google and its Motorola Mobility unit in high-stakes patent cases around the world. The Windows software developer claims that Google's Android platform violates its intellectual property.
Android is the best-selling smartphone operating system around the world.
Microsoft also tried to persuade federal regulators to bring a broad antitrust case against Google. However, the Federal Trade Commission concluded last month that Google had not manipulated its Web search results to hurt rivals.
For its part, Google agreed to no longer request sales bans when suing companies which infringe on patents that are essential to the interoperability of tech products.
The Oracle versus Google case examines whether computer language that connects programs and operating systems - known as application programming interfaces, or APIs - can be copyrighted.
Google argued it did not violate Oracle's patents and that Oracle cannot copyright APIs for Java, an open-source or publicly available software language.
The case is Oracle America Inc v. Google Inc, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 13-1201.
For Microsoft: Gregory Garre, Latham & Watkins.
For Oracle: E. Joshua Rosenkranz, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Susan Davies, Kirkland & Ellis.
For Google: Robert Van Nest, Keker & Van Nest.
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