Eastman Kodak Co. will return to U.S. District Court next week to seek $1 billion in damages from Sun Microsystems Inc. now that a federal jury has ruled in its favor in a dispute over the Java computer language.

Rochester's largest employer claimed during a three-week trial that portions of Java infringed on patents Kodak purchased from Wang Laboratories Inc. in late 1997.

The patents describe a method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain computer-oriented functions. That's generally similar to the way Java operates, according to Kodak and other experts.