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Oracle sued for theft of source code

by on12 January 2011


Isn't that what it sued SAP for
Oracle is finding itself on the receiving end of some of the accusations it levelled against SAP.

A Texan security software company 2FA claims that Oracle has been nicking its source code. In a 31-page legal document, 2FA claimed Passlogix, which is now an Oracle subsidiary, stole source code for authentication and credential management software to use in its own v-GO UAM product line.

To be fair to Oracle the 2FA claimed the source code theft had been going on before the US$42 million Oracle acquisition. But now it was using the Passlogix software with pilfered 2FA code on account of Oracle's purchase of the company. Passlogix had a 2FA licencing agreement back in 2006, but the agreement provided licence to 2FA software under very restrictive terms. To make matters worse a Passlogix product manager sent an email containing 2FA source code to other members of staff who "had no requirement to access" such information.

2FA claimed Oracle knew, or should have known, that some of the intellectual property it was acquiring in the Passlogix deal was illicitly taken. The case is very similar to won which Oracle won against SAP. Ellison's outfit was awarded $1.3 billion from SAP whose subsidiary TomorrowNow illegally downloaded millions of Oracle's files before and after it was bought out.
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