According to Oracle, the process of discovery will take at least 18 months. It has suggested a trial date of September 25, 2009. SAP on the other hand, is keen to put the lawsuit behind it and has asked for a mediator to be appointed in order to speed the time to resolution.
Oracle accuses SAP, SAP America, and its TomorrowNow subsidiary of corporate theft on a grand scale. The lawsuit was filed in the US Federal District Court in the Northern District of California on March 22, 2007. Oracle alleges that third-party maintenance provider TomorrowNow illegally downloaded support files and documents from the Oracle Customer Connection support web site. SAP has admitted to some inappropriate downloads but disputes multiple other allegations in the Oracle filing. The case conference is scheduled for September 4.
SAP has requested mediation as early as September, in the hope that it could either lead to a settlement, or help the combatants agree on the size of damages Oracle is seeking or the scope or timing of the discovery process. If the case goes to trial, SAP said it expects both parties could be ready for by February 2009 or earlier.
Oracle has not indicated how much it is seeking in damages. At the time of the original filing it was claiming 10,000 copyright infringements and legal experts noted that each could potentially cost SAP $150,000. Although some of this could be seen as grandstanding, there is potential for a large SAP liability.
Oracle has dismissed SAP’s mediation proposal. It views it as an attempt to limit investigation into how far TomorrowNow’s admitted wrongdoing extended into SAP. In Oracle’s view, the unauthorized downloading could just be the tip of the iceberg.
The discovery process is a significant bone of contention between the two as they disagree on both scope and timing. SAP wants to limit the discovery process to TomorrowNow, while Oracle wants it to include both TomorrowNow and SAP. If Oracle could prove that SAP benefited from the acquired information itself, rather than just the TomorrowNow subsidiary, the damages could be immense. SAP has always made a point of saying there was a firewall between TomorrowNow and SAP, and that information did not pass from the subsidiary into the mainstream SAP operation.
