SAP Says Oracle Is Appealing Copyright Infringement Payout

Oracle is to appeal a court’s decision in its long-running battle with SAP, according to the German company.

The case stretches back five years. In 2007, Larry Ellison’s firm alleged SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow illegally downloaded millions of Oracle files, including customer-support software and hundreds of thousands of pages of supporting documentation from one of its websites.

Oracle claimed SAP used what TomorrowNow had taken, including  an alleged 8 million instances of its enterprise support software worth $2.15 billion (£1.4bn), to lure customers away from the US tech giant.

SAP upset

In 2010, the battle looked to be over when a jury determined SAP should have paid Oracle $1.3 billion. At the time, it was the largest US copyright infringement award on record.

But a year later that decision was overturned by a judge, who said Oracle would have to accept $272 million in damages, as accepted by SAP, or appeal. It appears to have gone with the latter option.

An SAP spokesperson claimed reports an appeal was in the works were true and raised concerns that the case could last for a significant amount of time. “In the worst case the appeal could take two years,” the spokesperson told Reuters.

“We agreed to a reasonable arrangement, since we believe this case has already persisted long enough.”

At the time of publication, there was no comment from Oracle.

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