Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG

Oracle filed suit against SAP alleging that TomorrowNow, an enterprise software company recently acquired by SAP, was engaging in systematic and pervasive illegal downloading of Oracle's software. SAP stipulated to liability and the parties went to trial solely on damages. On appeal, Oracle challenged several of the district court's rulings. The court affirmed the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law to SAP where the hypothetical-license damage award was based on undue speculation and Oracle failed to provide sufficient objective evidence of the market value of the hypothetical license underpinning the jury's damages award; for the same reasons, the court affirmed the district court's grant of SAP's motion for a new trial based on remittitur; and the court rejected Oracle's claim that the district court erred in limiting the second trial to damages based on a lost-profits and infringer's-profits theory, barring Oracle's pursuit of hypothetical-license damages. The court concluded that the district court, in selecting a $272 million remittitur amount, abused its discretion in selecting the $36-million lost-profits figure rather than the $120.7-million one. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded to the district court for it to offer Oracle the choice between a $356.7-million remittitur and proceeding to a second trial. The court affirmed on the four rulings related to the second trial and did not reach the questions presented by the other three rulings.View "Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG" on Justia Law