Lawyers defending Google (NSDQ: GOOG) against a patent and copyright lawsuit brought by Oracle are trying desperately to keep a particular engineer’s e-mail out of the public eye-but it looks like they’re unlikely to succeed.

The e-mail, from Google engineer Tim Lindholm to the head of Google’s Android division, Andy Rubin, recommends that Google negotiate for a license to Java rather than pick an alternative system.

The key portion of the email was read aloud from the bench by U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a July 21 hearing. The second paragraph of the email reads: “What we’ve actually been asked to do by Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We’ve been over a bunch of these and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need.” //

Now Google is taking action to have that email, and Alsup’s reference to it in his order, thrown out of the public record. In a letter dated July 28, Van Nest wrote to Alsup, explaining that Google had handed over the email (which was actually a draft) inadvertently, and then later realized the email was subject to attorney-client privilege and never should have been disclosed. Oracle’s disclosure of the document was “improper,” argued Van Nest, and the email never should have been made public.