UPDATED: Oracle secures $30m from HPE in jury verdict
A California federal jury has found that Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) should pay Oracle $30 million in damages for infringing Oracle’s software and interfering with its business.
In a verdict handed down Monday, June 14, a jury at the US District Court for the Northern District of California declared that HPE had infringed the copyright in Oracle’s Solaris operating software.
The jury also concluded that Terix—a software support provider that HPE had partnered with—had also infringed Oracle’s copyright.
The clash dates back to 2016 when Oracle accused HPE of improperly accessing, downloading, copying, and installing patches for the Solaris software program without authorisation.
Three years later, the California court granted HPE’s motion for summary judgment, holding that Oracle’s infringement and interference claims were barred by the statute of limitations and that it had not presented evidence of unauthorised installations.
On appeal, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in August 2020 affirmed in part and reversed and vacated in part the lower court’s summary judgment order.
With the earlier decision reversed, the court ordered a new trial to determine whether HPE had infringed Oracle’s copyright. The Californian court was asked “to properly analyse the licences,” in considering HPE’s express licence defence and to “reconsider all infringement claims”.
In June last year, District Judge Jon Tigar held that HPE would have to face the suit.
At the time, Tigar found that the evidence gathered by Oracle reflected that HPE’s partnership with Terix—which “hinged on the company’s ability to provide customers with Solaris patches”—was an important piece of HPE’s business and was encouraged by management.
“The court therefore holds that Oracle can satisfy both elements of contributory copyright infringement and denies HPE’s motion for summary judgment on this claim,” wrote Tigar.
While the jury found that HPE had infringed Oracle’s copyright, it concluded that HPE did not contributorily infringe any copyright.
A further case management conference is set for 12 July.
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