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SAP to pay Versata £85m damages in patent lawsuit
SAP may appeal patent infringement ruling
By Peter Sayer
Published: 15:07 GMT, 02 September 09
ERP software vendor SAP has been ordered to pay $138.6 million (£85.36 million) to Versata Software after federal jury decided SAP had infringed five of the company's patents.
The patents, granted between 1998 and 2006, concerned methods for configuring systems, pricing products in multilevel product and organisational groups, and multisource transaction processing.
In its complaint, filed in April 2007, Versata maintained that SAP's Business Suite products and related services infringed on the patents.
It has won the damages it asked for, but is still seeking a permanent injunction preventing SAP from infringing on its patents.
"Our attorneys are reviewing the legal options and we expect to file an appeal," said SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie.
"We don't believe this will have any immediate, negative impact on our customers," he added.
Versata sells tools for product configuration, business rules management, policy administration and price optimization. It was formed in 2006 when business services company Trilogy acquired software developer Versata and adopted its name.
Since then Versata has made half a dozen other acquisitions in the fields of project portfolio management, enterprise contract management, network management, Web software development and data integration. Its most recent purchase, of business management specialist Everest Software, closed earlier this month.
(With additional reporting by Chris Kanaracus in Boston.)
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