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Posted on 09/01/2011 5:28:58 PM PDT by martin_fierro
It's been a tough week for Oracle Corp. and its lawyers.
Oracle sued SAP alleging copyright infringement. A judge said the evidence didnt' support the penalty.
On Thursday, the judge in a high-profile copyright case Oracle brought against rival SAP AG threw out a $1.3 billion jury verdict against the German software company. The ruling is expected to result in a new trial to set damages, unless Oracle accepts the judge's suggested figure of $272 million.
The court ruling is the second bit of unwelcome news for Oracle this week. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. authorities are investigating whether Oracle violated anti-bribery laws in some of its overseas deals.
Oracle's court battle against SAP captivated Silicon Valley last fall, and resulted in one of the biggest awards of all time in a case involving intellectual property. At the time, Oracle Chief Larry Ellison publicly accused his counterpart at Hewlett-Packard Co., Leo Apotheker, who previously held the top job at SAP, of masterminding an intellectual property theft ring and of ducking a subpoena.
Shortly before the trial began, SAP, of Walldorf, Germany, admitted that a former subsidiary, TomorrowNow, illegally downloaded Oracle's intellectual property and accepted responsibility for that act. The four-week trial—at which Oracle was represented by the well-known litigator David Boies— was thus limited to setting damages.
SAP appealed the jury's damage award, and U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton on Thursday concluded the amount "was contrary to the weight of the evidence" and "grossly excessive." The jury largely based its award on the amount SAP would have had to pay for rights to the software in licensing negotiations with Oracle.
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Add jackpot litigation to the list of reasons why people don’t want to do business in this country. Figures that the notorious Boies would be involved in this one.
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There’s no way in hell a group of people who can’t figure out how to get out of jury duty, or don’t have anything better to do, is going to understand the technology and issues involved. They’re simply going to choose who they like more and/or find more believable and go with that.
We need a more intelligent IP/copyright system because the current one is an epic fail when faced with modern technology.
not if they’re white and/or male
My company has spent upwards of $20 million on our SAP deployment project over the last 4 years and we're starting a major expansion and version upgrade that will cost millions more.
That's a SINGLE company - and SAP is used by over half of Fortune 500 companies. If SAP committed this violation, I'd estimate the value of potentially lost revenue for Oracle would have to be in the billions.
Don’t quote me on my “SAP is used by over half of Fortune 500 companies” comment. I read that in the past and have no evidence to support or contradict it.
Ehll, why would anyone spend more than a few million to come up with an idea. It's only yours for a few months.
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