Oracle files lawsuit against rival SAP

Oracle Corp announced on Friday that it has filed a lawsuit against rival SAP, alleging a "massive" theft of proprietary information.

The lawsuit, filed in the US Federal District Court in San Francisco names SAP and it's wholly owned subsidiary TomorrowNow, a third-party provider of support services for Oracle's PeopleSoft, J D Edwards and Siebel product lines, as defendants.

The lawsuit alleges that SAP has systematically, illegally accessed Oracle's customer-support Web site and taken "thousands" of Oracle software products and other proprietary support materials for its own use.

"SAP will not comment until it has had a chance to review the lawsuit", said a spokesman of the organization. SAP acquired TomorrowNow in 2005.

Oracle says, that since late November it noticed an unusually heavy volume of download activity on Oracle's password-protected customer support and maintenance site for its PeopleSoft and J D Edwards customers, reported CNET.News.

Upon a review of the Customer Connection site, Oracle alleges that it found more than 10,000 illicit downloads in which customers with expired, or soon-to-expire, support and maintenance contracts had accessed the support and maintenance site.

The online publications said Oracle claims that one common thread among all of the customers with allegedly misappropriated customer IDs is that they were about to become, or had recently become, an SAP TomorrowNow customers.