Oracle wins another battle, Rimini is not done yet

Oracle has been awarded another US$27.7 million after winning a court ruling against Rimini Street.

This is in addition to the US$50 million jury verdict and the US$46.2 million in attorneys' fees and costs awarded to Oracle in September.

Rimini Street issued the following statement: "Rimini Street will take responsibility for its past practices and pay a one-time fair market license fee of US$35.6 million awarded to Oracle for innocently infringing certain of its software copyrights."

Rimini Street will appeal against US$88 million of the total US$124 million awarded to Oracle, as well as the injunction.

The United States District Court for the District of Nevada handed down a permanent injunction preventing Rimini Street from continuing to break Oracle's copyrights. Rimini Street, an independent enterprise software support services provider with focus on SAP and Oracle, is prohibited from copying, distributing and using Oracle's copyrighted software and documentation.

The court has ruled that Rimini Street may not use a customer's software environment "to develop or test software updates or modifications for the benefit of any other licensee". This applies to Rimini's subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, directors, officers, principals and agents.

While the permanent injunction relates to the support for Oracle’s PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, and Database's product lines, it "does not prohibit Rimini's ongoing or future provision of support for these product lines, but rather constrains the manner in which Rimini Street may continue to provide support services for these product lines," according to Rimini Street.

Rimini Street has already filed an appeal of the injunction order, and will seek to have it overturned on the grounds that it is legally "flawed, vague, and overbroad".

Oracle raised concerns about two distinct statements from Rimini Street which put the company into a "contradictory position" and questioned whether "Rimini is misleading the court or making misrepresentations to customers".

The statements in question are Rimini's claims that there was "no expected impact" from the injunction and that it "could suffer significant harm to its current business practices if the proposed injunction were entered".

Rimini Street completed the transition to non-infringing practices in July 2014 and developed a revised PeopleSoft software development process and tools to comply with previous court rulings.

Rimini Street chief executive Seth A Ravin said: "Rimini Street has spent more than a decade reinventing enterprise software support, and will continue disrupting the outdated, high-cost, poor service, vendor support model that no longer meets client needs".

Oracle first sued Rimini Street in 2010, alleging the company had infringed the vendor's copyrights while providing support for Oracle's PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel.

The trial commenced in September 2015 and the jury's verdict came in October with Oracle being awarded US$50 million for copyright infringement. Oracle originally seeking US$200 million in damages.