Oracle expands SAP lawsuit

Oracle is expanding its lawsuit against SAP

Oracle is expanding its lawsuit against SAP, accusing the German software firm of a corporate conspiracy that reached its highest ranks.

The company has posted an amended version of its complaint over SAP's use of support firm TomorrowNow allegedly to steal Oracle intellectual property under the guise of customer support.

"Oracle initially brought this lawsuit after discovering that SAP had engaged in systematic illegal access to, and taking from, Oracle's computerised customer support systems," the company said in its filing.

"Oracle now amends its claims because discovery in this case has revealed that the focus of its original claims, SAP's massive illegal downloading of software and support materials from Oracle's password-protected computer systems, is just one element of a larger scheme by SAP to steal and misuse Oracle's intellectual property."

The case centres around TomorrowNow's alleged pilfering of Oracle support documents and code which were then used by SAP to lure PeopleSoft customers to competing SAP offerings.

Oracle now claims that SAP executives had planned from the start to steal information from Oracle, a plan known within the company as 'Project Blue'.

"SAP AG and SAP America bought TomorrowNow and converted it to SAP TN just two weeks later, days after Oracle closed on the deal with PeopleSoft," Oracle said in the filing.

"SAP AG did so knowing, at the SAP AG executive board level, that SAP TN's business model depended on routine, daily cross-use of misappropriated Oracle software applications and downloaded support products.

"Moreover, SAP AG knew that the SAP TN services it exploited to convert Oracle customers relied on SAP TN's tainted development activity to create illegal 'SAP TN' software support products."

SAP has long maintained that it was not aware of any foul play at the time, and that any "inappropriate downloads" performed by TomorrowNow were not passed on or used to benefit SAP.

The company announced last week that it intends to shut down TomorrowNow.