The protracted legal fight between the world’s top enterprise software companies continued this week, as SAP responded to Oracle’s most recent complaint by admitting certain suspected activities but denying legal liability. In its court filing this week, SAP requested a jury trial.
The filing continues a legal saga that is headed toward the two-year mark. In March 2007, Oracle filed a lawsuit against SAP alleging that, after its 2005 purchase of software maintenance provider TomorrowNow, SAP illegally accessed Oracle’s software support material and sought to suppress Oracle’s market competitiveness.
In this week’s response to the most recent Oracle complaint, SAP rebuts Oracle’s claim that the case involves “corporate theft … on the grandest scale,” asserting instead that “this case (once parsed of Plaintiffs’ rhetoric) is simply about whether TN exceeded its rights to access Plaintiffs’ computers, whether that harmed Plaintiffs, and, if so, by how much.”
Throughout the filing, SAP concedes that statements Oracle had attributed to SAP’s employees and documents are factually correct, but repeatedly contests Oracle’s claims of illegality.