Versata Software Inc., a purveyor of business rules and pricing optimization software, emerged the victor this week in a seven-day patent infringement trial against SAP.
A jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, awarded Austin-based Versata $138 million for what it considered SAP’s infringement of two Versata pricing technology patents. The original lawsuit, filed in October 2006, claimed infringement of five patents, but was narrowed down to focus on two, a Versata spokesman told Managing Automation.
Both patents, one issued in 1999 and the other in 2003, address “pricing products in multi-level product and organizational groups,” according to Versata’s website. The technology creates hierarchical pricing tables that organize various purchasing groups and products based on who is purchasing what product.
“When you have multi-tiered pricing for customers … you would need different levels of pricing for them. This [technology] solves the problem,” explained Reed Byrum, a Versata spokesman. “It would allow you to be able to easily price complex products and it is fast in doing that. It is easy to maintain and fits perfectly into CRM and ERP systems.”