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14 October 2019CopyrightSaman Javed

Broadcom accuses Hudson’s Bay of breach of licence in $55m suit

A subsidiary of American conglomerate  Broadcom has sued Canadian retailer  Hudson’s Bay for copyright infringement, claiming the  Saks Fifth Avenue owner breached a software licensing agreement.

In its complaint, filed October 11 at the  US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Broadcom said Saks, a subsidiary of the Ontario-based company, had previously licensed the right to use certain software owned by CA Technologies.

CA Technologies is a computer software company acquired by Broadcom in 2018.

Broadcom said that in 2017, CA modified the licensing agreement, notifying Saks that the “original products” in the agreement were being terminated and replaced with new “migrated products”.

CA said it provided Saks with the migrated products on September 30, giving the department store a 270-day grace period to transition from the original products to the migrated products.

But, according to the complaint, Saks failed to transition and continued to use the original products after the transition deadline, infringing CA’s copyright.

“In April 2019, CA learned that Saks had not migrated from the original products but, instead, continued to use the original products after the transition deadline without a valid licence from CA,” the complaint said.

According to the complaint, in April CA notified Hudson’s Bay that failure to comply was a violation of the licensing agreement, giving the company 30 days to cease use of the original products.

Following this, the parties had attempted to negotiate a resolution, but they were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms.

As a result, CA said it had terminated the agreement in August and all licences had been revoked, but Hudson’s Bay allegedly continued to use the CA Software after the termination.

The software company’s eight claims for relief seek a total of nearly $55 million in damages.

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