Last year, a U.S. District Court jury in Marshall, Texas, found that SAP infringed on Versata’s (ex Trilogy) patents, and awarded it $139 million in damages. That case is awaiting a ruling on several post-trial matters and the entry of judgment by the U.S. District Court.
SAP had created an equivalent to Versata’s product “Pricer” apparently without paying enough attention to a number of patents on rule algorithms that Versata owns.While this is not the first time where SAP has infringed patents (see also the out of court settlement with I2, where SAP paid $ 83 million and others (http://tinyurl.com/2d3e49l) but this is taking a different spin.
Versata claims that SAP changed its ERP-product so that Versata’s “Pricer” would no longer interface with SAP’s software. Hence, Versata has appealed to the European Commission to look into the case hinting that it has striking similarities to Microsoft’s lock-out tactics that were subject to the EU fines in 2004 totaling 1.6 billion Euros.
The Versata case, however, may have additional aspects:
- it shows (not for the first time) that SAP has no strict policy of honoring IP. Like many other companies, SAP (unfortunately) does not even enforce this among its employees in the code of business conduct document for its employees (see http://tinyurl.com/23268fu). Oracle, having sued SAP for IP infringements allegedly committed by SAP’s TN subsidiary will certainly like this aspect
- the level of control that SAP has over its installed base and also its partner eco-system may be severely impacted should Versata get its case with the EU. That will have effects far in excess of the claims that Versata makes and it will likely reduce SAP’s bundling capabilities.
This may work out well for customers, as they may be getting more choice and fewer interface problems to worry about. As we know from Microsoft, the impact over time on a vendor’s behavior is significant – SAP could be at the beginning of a very radical learning curve.
Sapience
