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Oracle Charged SAP For Copying Its Programs

Oracle Corp. accused SAP AG, an applications archival firm for committing theft of company information, in the third week of March 2007. Oracle claimed that SAP hacked its numerous proprietary, copyrighted software and other confidential contents that Oracle Corp's support organization used.

Oracle filed a 44-page lawsuit on March 22, 2007 in San Francisco's federal court. It alleged that SAP replicated the software applications and support items onto its servers to achieve "an illegal library" of Oracle programs and documents giving instructions.

According to the lawsuit SAP obtained the illegal downloads from an IP address located in Bryan, Texas from where SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow (TN) Inc. operates. SAP then used those allegedly stolen contents to develop its migration programs.

Oracle said the suit was to halt SAP's unauthorized accesses and to stop SAP from misusing Oracle's contents in attempts to act as its rival. The company also wanted to recover the damage expenses and its attorney's fees.

On March 23, 2007 SAP said in a statement that it would fight to defend itself from the accusations that Oracle hurled on it. However, it did not make any comments about the accusations.

Oracle first noticed the illegal activity in November 2006 and continued to say in its lawsuit that SAP downloaded the material for the purpose of 27 customers. The complaint said that SAP designed a competitive strategy to carry out the theft. The suit pointed out how after selling their program packages the software makers strike the deal value.

Some of the Oracle customers - Merck and Co., SPX and Metro Machine, Honeywell International and OCE Technologies recently switched to SAP for product support deals, the suit alleged.

According to further allegations, SAP lacked adequate information or resources to support Oracle's package of software. That is why it clandestinely raided on Oracle's systems since September 2006 all through January 2007.

The suit alleged that SAP went against the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. It also charged that SAP competed through most unfair means, interfering intentionally to make economic gains and engage in civil conspiracy.

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