In New Delhi: Oracle will be apparently pocketing the largest U.S. copyright infringement award on record USD 1.3 billion , from enterprise application rival SAP after a court jury decided that the amount was fair compensation in a 3-year-old copyright infringement case.
Oracle had claimed that SAP illegally downloaded instances of its customer-support software and pages of supporting documentation from one of its Web sites, then used those tools to lure some 350 customers away from Oracle and over to SAP.
SAP took corporate responsibility for its affiliate TommorowNow's actions in a court document officially apologized. Earlier the German enterprise application maker had admitted that it took corporate responsibility for copyright infringement involving its marketplace rival, Oraclethree and a half years after Oracle first brought the lawsuit.Later, SAP officially apologized in court for its actions by the service provider acquired in 2005, TomorrowNow, but were done with the complicity of high-up SAP executives.
SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott apologized to the court and Oracle for its copyright infringement.
"They [TomorrowNow] were doing things that required much closer scrutiny, and we didn't do that," McDermott said. "I am sorry for that."
Two years after it was acquired by SAP in 2005, TomorrowNow was caught stealing Oracle's intellectual property by gaining unauthorized access to a customer-support Oracle Website and downloading copyrighted instances of support software and thousands of pages of documentation.
In the original litigation, Oracle claimed that more than 8 million instances of its enterprise support software worth USD 2.15 billion were stolen, stored on SAP's servers and used without its permission.
SAP followed up We are, of course, disappointed by this verdict and will pursue all available options, including post-trial motions and appeal if necessary. This will unfortunately be a prolonged process and we continue to hope that the matter can be resolved appropriately without more years of litigation. The mark of a leading company is the way it handles its mistakes. As stated in court, we regret the actions of TomorrowNow, we have accepted liability, and have been willing to fairly compensate Oracle. Throughout this matter, our customers, employees and partners have stood by us and, for that, we are grateful. Our focus now is looking forward, helping our customers be best-run businesses, and extending our legacy of industry leadership well into the future. We thank the jury for its diligent service through this lengthy trial and the Court for its supervision of this complex case.
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