SAP Pays Oracle $306 Million to Settle Copyright Lawsuit

Oracle accused SAP's TomorrowNow subsidiary of "Grand Theft" for downloading thousands of copyrighted documents from its Customer Connection website.

After admitting to the copyright violation, SAP was hit with a jury ruling that awarded Oracle $1.3 billion in damages in late 2010. A district judge reduced the award to $272 million in September 2011 and granted the option of a new trial. Oracle quickly decided for a retrial earlier this year, which was originally scheduled to begin in June.

In an apparent move to avoid a lengthy retrial, SAP now agreed to pay Oracle $306 million in damages. "Although we believe that $306 million is more than the appropriate damages amount, we agreed to this in an effort to bring this case to a reasonable resolution," a SAP spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources.

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