Oracle rejects Google's man for mediation

Come on judge, we want the Two Larrys!

We didn't really expect Larry Page to take two full days out of the Googleplex to sit down and talk about patent infringements with the software company Oracle – he's got maths to do, nerds to manage and Google+ updates to write. But Google could have come up with someone a bit senior to meet the mediation team from the enraged software company.

Google has offered to send Andy Rubin – senior vice president of mobile and the man responsible for the development of Android – to meet Oracle President Safra Catz in the mediation meeting ordered by the judge to resolve Oracle's patent lawsuit.

But Oracle has put in a complaint to the court about the man Google has chosen to represent it. They say that 1) Rubin is not senior enough to make the decisions needed for a successful mediation meeting and 2) that Rubin and his patent-infringing ways are the cause of the problem in the first place.

The corporation has appealed Google's choices in a letter to the judge:

"The Court's September 2, 2011 Order appropriately directs the parties to identify 'top corporate executives' to participate in the mediation. Oracle believes the prospects for a successful mediation will be far greater if Google's executive-level representative is a superior to Mr Rubin, who is the architect of Google's Android strategy – the strategy that gives rise to this case."

Catz is a big gun at Oracle, regularly making billion-pound deals for the company, and arguably Rubin just wouldn't be able to do the same. And billions of dollars are at stake.

It's up to the judge to decide whether Google should cough someone someone a bit higher up the corporate food chain.

If both companies are forced to push out their CEOs, maybe we will see that Larry (Ellison) v Larry (Page) shoot-out that The Reg was looking forward to... ®