SAP will ask a California court to reduce the US$1.3 billion jury award it was hit with last November in Oracle’s TomorrowNow lawsuit against the company, SAP said Thursday.
Earlier in the day the court entered its final judgment against SAP, basically confirming the jury’s award. SAP has already paid Oracle $120 million in legal fees and must pay a further $14.7 million in “prejudgment interest.”
SAP said it will file “post-trial motions” with the court to try to get the award reduced, and possibly also an appeal. An SAP spokesman declined to say what the motions would argue, but they are likely to assert that the award is disproportionate to the offense. SAP had argued at trial that it should have to pay Oracle about $40 million.
“SAP will file these motions in the coming weeks asking the Court to reduce the amount of damages awarded or to order a new trial,” SAP said in a statement.
“Depending on the outcome of the post-trial motion process, SAP may also consider an appeal.”
Oracle said it was “very pleased” with the judgment for what it called SAP’s “massive intentional copyright infringement.”
SAP admitted that its now-shuttered TomorrowNow subsidiary, which provided software support services, downloaded software programs and thousands of support documents illegally from an Oracle website. The trial was to determine how much SAP should be made to pay.