Oracle to SAP: ‘See You Back in Court’
February 7, 2012
As predictably as the sun rising in the east, Oracle Monday rejected the slashed $272 million award for damages that the presiding federal court judge decided it should get from SAP for its admitted copyright infringement rather than the $1.3 billion the jury awarded Oracle in late 2010 following a captivating and highly publicized trial.
Oracle told the court it wants the new trial it was offered to "vindicate" the jury and its property rights as well as to avoid risking its right to appeal the court’s decision.
SAP, which agreed to pay a $20 million fine to the US government to avoid criminal prosecution, said it was "disappointed."…
Calling the jury award "grossly excessive," Judge Phyllis Hamilton last September found Oracle only proved actual damages of $272 million.
SAP’s third-party maintenance arm TomorrowNow illegally downloaded reams of Oracle software and customer-support documents before it was shut down in 2008.
SAP figures it should only have to pay $40 million for the widgetry TomorrowNow used. It contends the subsidiary didn’t steal that many Oracle customers.
The jury award was based on the value of a hypothetical license to all the ripped-off software Oracle said SAP would have needed although Oracle CEO Larry Ellison testified SAP could never have gotten such a license.