SAP: Oracle damages 'grossly excessive'; Oracle wants more dough if new trial
SAP has filed documents asking a U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif. to reduce the $1.3 billion jury award to Oracle over the TomorrowNow intellectual property infringement lawsuit. Oracle scoffed at SAP's request for a new trial and said if it weren't for court errors damages would be more like $1.8 billion.
The documents, filed Wednesday, argue that Oracle's jury award was based on damages for copyright infringement "in the form of a hypothetical license." SAP is arguing that Oracle didn't establish that it would have licensed the copyrighted works at the center of the TomorrowNow trial.
Bottom line (for SAP at least): Damages should be between $28 million (SAP's assessment) and $408.7 million (Oracle's expert).
According to SAP:
At trial, Oracle did not contend that it is entitled to a hypothetical license because it lost the opportunity to license the works to third parties for the same use as was made by TomorrowNow. Thus, to establish its entitlement to recover hypothetical license damages, Oracle was required to show that the parties would have agreed to license for the use of the copyrighted works at issue. But Oracle offered none of the evidence on which plaintiffs typically rely to prove that the parties would have entered into such a license, such as past licensing history between the parties or plaintiffs’ previous licensing practices.
To SAP, Oracle's $1.3 billion award is a "miscarriage of justice" and may deserve a new trial.
Oracle in its response obviously disagrees. Oracle's argument in a motion, via AllThingsD, go like this:
- There's no need for a new trial.
- Damages are supported.
- If a new trial is necessary, Oracle will seek an additional $500 million in damages due to errors during the last trial. Oracle argues that the court erred in excluding projections of Oracle's upsell and cross-sell revenue from the PeopleSoft and Siebel acquisitions.
Bottom line for Oracle: SAP should pay $1.8 billion in damages.
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