SAP Board Knew of Copying, Oracle Says as Trial Opens
This article is for subscribers only.
Oracle Corp. told a federal jury that SAP AG’s board of directors knew as far back as 2005 that a software maintenance unit was illegally downloading Oracle software and infringing on its copyrights.
Instead of competing fairly after Oracle threatened SAP’s dominance in the business software market through acquisitions, Germany-based SAP purchased a U.S. company in 2005 that was improperly accessing Oracle’s intellectual property, Geoffrey Howard, the company’s attorney, said today. The value of the infringed software is in the billions of dollars, he said.