Oracle to SAP: How's This for Grossly Excessive–We Want Another Half-Billion in Damages

The $1.3 billion jury award given Oracle in its intellectual property infringement case against SAP is not only “grossly excessive,” it’s a “miscarriage of justice” that “shocks the conscience.”

So says SAP in a new motion seeking to sharply reduce that award, which it says is in conflict with copyright law and founded on sheer speculation.

“The jury’s $1.3 billion ‘hypothetical license’ fee award was an unreasonable amount that went far beyond what was needed to make Oracle whole,” SAP argued in its motion. “The enormous fee did not–indeed, could not–represent Oracle’s actual damages because Oracle never lost a license fee from Defendants or anyone else. The Copyright Act does not permit such awards that are un-tethered to a plaintiff’s actual harm, and the hypothetical license claim should not have gone to the jury.”

And so SAP is asking the court to drop the award to no more than $408.7 million or order a new trial.

Oracle, of course, believes the verdict should stand and opposes SAP’s motion. But if its rival should be granted a new trial, Oracle wants to seek an additional half a billion dollars in damages that it feels it lost when the court unfairly excluded its up-sell and cross-sell projections.

“In the event the Court were to order a new trial, however, Oracle respectfully submits that this Court would be required to review all errors at trial, including those errors that prejudiced Oracle and resulted in a reduction of the damages to which it was entitled,” the company argues. “While Oracle believes the jury’s verdict fairly reflects the evidence properly admitted, it also notes that the verdict fell toward the bottom of the range of reasonable license amounts Oracle presented, and that the Court’s rulings on certain issues shifted that range significantly downward. … [It] cut half a billion dollars from the damages opinion that Oracle’s damages expert would have offered and that fact witnesses would have supported with additional testimony and documentary evidence.”

In other words, SAP’s motion is bogus, it doesn’t deserve a new trial, and if it’s granted one Oracle wants the chance at a $1.8 billion award. Oracle’s motion in full below.

1046_Conditional New Trial Motion –

PREVIOUSLY:

• Oracle to SAP: You Owe Us Another $212 Million
• Oracle-SAP Verdict: SAP Owes Oracle $1.3 Billion
• Oracle-SAP: Closing Statements Followed by Closing Insults
• Oracle-SAP Case Closes With $1.67 Billion Difference of Opinion
• LOLCatz: Safra on The Stand Again in Oracle-SAP Trial
• Plattner and White No-Shows at Oracle-SAP Trial
• Damages Expert to SAP: You Owe Me $14 Million and Oracle Four Times That
• Oracle, SAP and the Apotheker Sideshow
• Better Late: SAP Co-CEO Apologizes for Oracle IP Theft
• SAP Co-CEO Expected to Testify in Oracle Trial Today
• HP to Oracle: Leave Léo Alone
• Oracle Still Hoping to Snag HP’s Apotheker for SAP Trial
• HP CEO to Oracle: Here’s Looking at You, Kid–Suntory Time!
• Ellison to Self: Damn, Damn. I Knew I Should Have Said $4.5 Billion
• SAP Attorney: Board Knew TomorrowNow Was Infringing at Time of Acquisition
• Oracle Co-President on SAP’s Damages Offer: “It’s Crazy”
• Oracle Enlists Process Servers, Not PIs, to Find HP CEO
• Oracle-SAP Trial: Ellison Swaps Katana for Poison Darts
• Objection: Mr. Ellison Is Referring to the Defendant as “Choleric of Temper” Again
• Oracle Lands Early Shots in SAP Trial
• Your Honor, We Object to Mr. Ellison’s Repeated Use of the Term “Slimy Weasels”
• Oracle to HP CEO: Chicken!
• Oracle Vs. SAP: We Got a Right to Pick a Little Fight–Bonanza!
• SAP’s Tab in Oracle Case: $120 Million and Counting
• Gag Order Denied in Oracle, SAP Trial
• Ellison Taunts HP CEO a Second Time
• SAP to Ellison: Save the Drama for Your Mama
• Ellison to HP CEO: “Warrior, Come Out to Plaaeeay!
• SAP: Please Gag Oracle
• HP Scandal Sucks in New York Times Columnist Over Conflict of Interest
• Welch to HP Board: You Don’t Know Jack!
• Insiders Criticize Ellison For HP CEO Slam
• Was Apotheker HP’s First Choice of CEO?
• HP Names Ex-SAP Chief Apotheker as CEO