Keywords: SAP, Oracle, copyright infringement, settlement, damages, trial, TomorrowNow

SAP to pay Oracle $306 million in damages

Sarah Feurey | News | 3 August 2012

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SAP has agreed to pay Oracle $306m in damages over copyright infringement allegations filled against it and a former SAP subsidiary in 2007.

Subsidiary TomorrowNow was caught making unauthorized access to a customer-support Oracle Website and downloading copyrighted support software and thousands of pages of documentation. It then resold the software and documentation to Oracle customers and tried to persuade them to switch to SAP.

In 2010, a jury ruled that Oracle should be paid $1.3bn in damages. However, last year, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton discarded the jury verdict and said Oracle could either take a $272m award, or start new trial against SAP.

Oracle chose to begin a new trial that was scheduled to begin on 27 August, however it appears that the two companies have now reached an agreement to settle.

A SAP spokesperson said “SAP believes this case has gone on long enough. Although we believe that $306m is more than the appropriate damages amount, we agreed to this in an effort to bring this case to a reasonable resolution."

However, the proposed settlement requires court approval and will allow Oracle to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restore the original $1.3bn jury award.