A federal judge said Oracle can?t seek $1 billion in damages from Google for infringing copyrights when it developed Android software because a jury couldn?t agree on whether it was "fair use."

The jury in San Francisco were asked to consider four questions on Oracle's claim that Google violated several of its patents and copyrights, but could only agree on three. It found in Google's favour on two of them.

Google was found to have infringed Oracle's copyright on nine lines of Java code that is in Android.

But Oracle can only seek statutory damages, ranging from $200 to $150,000.

Google is asking for a mistrial to be declared.

The same jury will now hear evidence in the next phase of the trial, covering Oracle's allegations that Android violates two Java patents.

Oracle was asking for $1bn in compensation in one of the biggest such technology lawsuits to date.