According to a Business Objects statement, a federal US court of appeals in Washington DC has ordered McLean, Virginia-based MicroStrategy to trial for alleged infringements relating to the copying of core aspects of its software. Specifically the infringement relates to Business Objects’ relational database access system – dubbed semantic layer.
Business Objects is confident of a successful outcome of the trial, which is expected to be held in a California district court later this year.
Business Objects originally filed the lawsuit in October 2001 and had sought damages in excess of $100 million. In August 2003 a lower court in the US dismissed its claims which subsequently went to the court of appeals.
Business Objects has been particularly aggressive in defending its patented semantically dynamic objects technology, which it developed in 1990, against its nearest BI rivals. The technology, commonly referred to as semantic layer, is a mapping layer that provides a representation of a database using familiar business terms like customer or sales.
Business Objects says the layer allows non-technical users to access and query data without IT involvement.
