Oracle-SAP lawsuit: more grist for the grind

Within the next four weeks, Oracle plans to amend its trade secret lawsuit against arch-rival SAP AG and the company's TomorrowNow subsidiary. With the amendment, more details are expected to emerge in the dog-fight between the two giants in the enterprise applications industry.

According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, Oracle intends to file its first amended complaint sometime between Sunday and May 18. After it files its amendment, SAP will have 20 days to formally respond to the allegations, the court documents state.

The legal wrangling centers on allegations that TomorrowNow, a supplier of third party support and maintenance, over stepped its bounds when it wooed Oracle's PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards customers to its camp. More specifically, Oracle alleges that TomorrowNow accessed its system and retrieved proprietary information that went beyond what some of its prior customers were entitled to, as part of their support and maintenance contract with Oracle.

Oracle also alleges TomorrowNow, in some cases, accessed its system using its former customers' log-in and password information, even though those customers' contracts had already expired days before.

SAP, meanwhile, said it will aggressively defend itself against the lawsuit. And specifics may become more evident once it files its formal response.