UPDATED 11:29 EDT / NOVEMBER 23 2010

Oracle, SAP Battle Ends with $1.67B Ruling… But is it Really Over?

Although the court case is officially over, SAP and Oracle continue to refer to each other in not so friendly terms outside the courthouse. Oracle accuses SAP not only of starting to act unlawfully four years ago by illicitly downloading software from Oracle, but also calling out SAP for officially denying it for three and a half years in the row.

Never mind that during the end of the trial, SAP was driven to confess its illegal behavior and practices, namely ‘copyright infringement, violations of state and federal computer fraud laws, unfair competition, breach of contract and interference.’  Oracle and SAP live on to banter beyond the confines of a courtroom hearing.  Oracle was awarded $1.67 billion in damages, an amount SAP considers rather unreasonable, despite its confession.

Oracle states that, apart from claiming compensation from financial losses, they draw attention to the violation of intellectual property, a common practice for a ‘dominant player in the industry.’

On the other hand, SAP considers that maximum focus should be set over setting the right sum for compensations as the flow of events in the past four years are not that important. SAP emphasizes its fair conduct by apologizing to Oracle for the TomorrowNow acquisition and by paying compensations to the aggrieved party.

The jury agreed on the sum $1.7 billion to be paid to Oracle by SAP, although SAP’s attorney considered the sum to be abusive as SAP has not benefitted financially from the TomorrowNow deal so as to cover the $1.7 billion sum.

Oracle has also filed suit in the past on grounds of intellectual property infringement. Earlier this year, Oracle took Google to court to fight over Java patents and copyright.

[image credit AP]


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