Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

Awkward! Oracle Says Those Secret HP Files Were Copied By … HP (Updated)

Remember how last April Hewlett Packard sued a former employee who took a job at Oracle and accused him of violating trade secrets? Remember the seemingly juicy allegation against him that he used a USB drive to copy hundreds of files and thousands of emails from his HP-issued computer only days before leaving?

It turns out that the copying of Jones’s computer was done not by Jones but by HP, and that the copying hadn’t happened in April as originally alleged, but in December, when the machine in question was in the hands of an HP tech.

In a demand letter to the judge in the case, Oracle asked that the case against Adrian Jones, once HP’s senior vice president for Enterprise Storage and Server Networking, be dismissed. He resigned from HP in February to take a job at Oracle, where he is now a senior vice president. He had joined HP in 2007.

“The central allegation in HP’s employment lawsuit against Adrian Jones has turned out to be complete fiction,” says Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger. “If they did it knowingly then HP and their lawyers should be sanctioned. If they did it mistakenly then they simply owe Mr. Jones an apology.”

The letter also accuses HP of embarking on a “wild good chase” seeking to “examine every device ever used by Jones,” including an iPhone and an iPad belonging to Jones’s girlfriend.

The letter (which you can read below Oracle’s court filing on the matter, both embedded via Scribd) also says that in December Jones was the subject of an internal investigation by HP. It doesn’t give any hint what the investigation was about, but that in the course of it, the hard drive in Jones’ computer was copied by HP investigators. Oracle says a forensic analysis of the machine conducted by experts working for HP shows that no files were copied in February, and that Jones never had possession of the hard drive in question.

“HP has no evidence whatsoever that Jones improperly acquired, used, or disclosed any HP trade secret,” Oracle says in the filing.

HP had no comment.

Update at 2:15 PM PDT / 5:15 PM EDT : I just got a brief revised statement from HP. Here it is:

“In response to HP’s complaint and motion for temporary restraining order seeking the return of its confidential information, Jones submitted an April 6, 2011 sworn declaration claiming he did not possess any HP trade secrets, property or information, and that he did not possess any device containing HP information. That declaration was false. After the Court issued the Temporary Restraining Order requested by HP, Jones returned to HP certain confidential information.”

Oracle filing re HP

Oracle demand letter to HP counsel

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