In what could be one of the biggest legal battles in the software industry, SAP has seen a minute victory as the company was able to convince the court to lower the APR damages awarded to Oracle. Initially, Oracle was asking for $200 million pre-judgment interests, on top of the $1.3 billion that SAP owes them after winning the copyright infringement last November. However, the authorities have ruled that a different method should be utilized to compute for the interest that SAP will have to pay. The recalculation will pull down this overwhelming sum to an estimated $16.5 million.

In an article published in AllThingsD, a spokesperson of SAP noted their appreciation of the court’s response on their appeal to lower damage costs awarded to Oracle: “While we believe that Oracle should only be awarded damages, we appreciate that the Court agreed with SAP on the proper calculation of interest in this case which dramatically lowered the amount. The interest the Court ordered, based on the statutorily-set interest rate of .3 percent and the accrual period of September 29, 2006 through December 23, 2010, is approximately $16.5 million, rather than the over 200 million Oracle was seeking.”

This massive setback for SAP commenced when Oracle slapped them with a legal case on copyright infringement that involved TomorrowNow. A report posted in SiliconAngle by Kristina Farrah explained the gravity of the situation to Oracle’s present clientele and its future in the industry. SAP purchased TomorrowNow in 2005—the same company that was tapped by Oracle previously. According to the lawsuit, SAP had downloaded critical information of Oracle’s clients and this poses an obvious threat. In all fairness to SAP, its co-CEO Bill McDermott has admitted the organizations fault in this situation and apologized. But he stressed that TomorrowNow was unsuccessful and that the damage suit that Oracle was asking was way over the top.