Can I use protobufs to in the kernel?

I need to define a communication protocol with a Linux device driver. Protobufs look very nice, and there is an active C port.

Is it possible to use protobufs in a Linux device driver?
Obviously the vanilla c code will not work as it makes malloc calls, etc. Is there protobufs implementation that targets the kernel?

If there is a drop in solution, how much effort is it to port a C library for use in the kernel?

Bonus question: Are the answers significantly different when writing with windows drivers?