Oracle-SAP Court Battle Gets February '09 Trial Date

Oracle's lawsuit against rival SAP will move finally to trial on February 9, 2009 - almost two years after the suit was initially filed, SAP said Tuesday.

After a case management conference with the two sides that had been postponed from September 4, Judge Martin Jenkins of the Northern District Court in San Francisco set the date for the four-week trial, along with a deadline for motions of November 13, 2008. A further case management conference will be held February 12, 2009. Jenkins is expected to issue a more detailed order, with limits on discovery and the possible use of mediation to resolve the dispute, SAP said.

In March, Oracle sued SAP for illegally downloading customer support materials from an Oracle Web site, via its TomorrowNow subsidiary. SAP acquired TomorrowNow, which provides support for products from Oracle acquisitions PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, in January 2005.

TomorrowNow may use some materials from Oracle's Customer Connection Web site, but only for certain customers covered under particular agreements. SAP admitted that TomorrowNow did make some "inappropriate" downloads, but maintains that the information was not passed to the parent company, nor did it approve such downloads.

Both companies maintain Web sites relating to the case. Oracle's can be found here, and SAP's here. Oracle had not issued a statement on the case management conference at time of writing.