The New Nation - Internet Edition

IT REPORT

German software giant SAP AG's (SAP) partner TomorrowNow Inc. secretly redistributed software products from rival Oracle Corp. (ORCL), and some SAP executives knew about it, according to new allegations in a long-running legal battle between the two companies.

The new allegations are mentioned in filings that became part of the case and are a serious departure from the original set of charges.

Oracle sued SAP for copyright infringement on March 22, 2007, and at the time said the wrongdoing was limited to support materials for Oracle products, which include things like training manuals.

According to a description of the new charges, Oracle now believes SAP's TomorrowNow division illegally-obtained Oracle's software applications to service customers, train employees, and also create fake "SAP" branded fixes, updates and related documentation for distribution.

Meanwhile, according to the same description, unnamed SAP corporate and SAP America executives know of the likely illegality of what TomorrowNow was doing, but "for business reasons" didn't intervene.

"Through this process, TomorrowNow made thousands of copies of Oracle's software, and distributed thousands of infringing fixes, updates and related copyrighted documents," according to the paperwork.

Oracle's expected to file the new allegations by June.

An SAP spokesman said, "For the moment, we will let the filings speak for themselves.

At this point these are strictly allegations, and we have rebuttals, and raising issues ultimately the court will address."