Ellison: Oracle has $4 billion case against SAP

Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison turned up the pressure in an industrial espionage trial Monday by testifying that archenemy SAP AG should have paid $4 billion for licenses to Oracle software, reports the Associated Press. SAP and Oracle, two of the world’s biggest business-software makers, are fighting over how much SAP should pay to atone for the shady tactics of a now-shuttered software support subsidiary called TomorrowNow. SAP has already admitted to bad behavior. It acknowledged that TomorrowNow stole customer support documents from Oracle password-protected websites and used them to steal business from Oracle by offering similar services at a cheaper price. Oracle has said that it is owed billions for the value of the intellectual property that was taken from it. Ellison’s $4 billion estimate concerned the amount of money SAP would have paid for the appropriate licenses to Oracle’s software, under certain conditions…

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Trial opens over damages in Oracle copyright case with SAP

The dispute between the software giants Oracle and SAP, in one of the most closely watched court cases in Silicon Valley history, is not over whether SAP engaged in a copyright infringement scheme, but over how much damage was done to Oracle, reports the New York Times. SAP has already admitted that it infringed on Oracle’s copyrights and has conceded liability. At issue in a jury trial that began on Tuesday in Federal District Court is how much money SAP will pay in damages. Oracle has argued for $2 billion, and SAP has countered that tens of millions of dollars would be enough. It has set aside $160 million to cover the cost.

For most people in the technology industry, though, the trial is a forum for Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle’s outspoken chief executive, to go after Léo Apotheker, SAP’s former chief executive and now chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. H.P. had been a close partner of Oracle’s, but in recent months the companies have become rivals…

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