Legal Woes : Court ups stakes in copyright fight

SAN FRANCISCO: A US appeals court ruled that Oracle be given a choice between $356.7 million or a new trial for its copyright lawsuit against German rival SAP. The settlement amount would be less than a third of the $1.3 billion SAP was ordered to pay the Silicon Valley giant by a jury in November 2010.The ruling by a panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came in response to a legal move made by Oracle in late 2012. The appeals panel backed the trial judge on several points, including her decision to override the big-money damages award based on the reasoning that the jury used “undue speculation.” After a jury ordered SAP to pay the Silicon Valley giant $1.3 billion, US District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton called the figure “grossly excessive” and slashed it to $272 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2014.

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