Dive Brief:

• Oracle sued Hewlett Packard Enterprise in federal District Court in Northern California on Tuesday for copyright infringement centered around a third-party maintenance and support dispute.
• Oracle alleges that HPE partnered with Terix to illegally sell Solaris support services to dual Oracle and HPE customers, a move that undercut Oracle’s support services.
• Oracle claims HPE entered into the partnership with Terix "despite HP employees raising concerns about the legality of Terix’s conduct to HP’s legal department," the court documents state. 

Dive Insight:

Back in October, Oracle won $50 million in damages against Rimini Street, an independent software support provider for both Oracle and SAP licensees, in a similar trial revolving around third party support and copyright infringement. 

Oracle’s victory in that case was thought to perhaps limit competition and options for CIOs looking to cut costs. But in the Rimini case, the legality of third party support was not in question. Some CIOs say they are frustrated with big software companies that charge exorbitant costs for licensing, maintenance and support, including updates and other tweaks they don’t need. 

Oracle won a $58 million judgment against Terix last June and during the case, Oracle representatives said they learned HPE's alleged conduct, according to PCWorld.

The lawsuit alleges that HPE "sold support services to Oracle customers that included software support by Terix despite knowing that Terix’s software support included Solaris Updates that Terix had no lawful right to provide."

In addition to copyright infringement, the lawsuit also accuses HP of intentionally interfering with contracts and "unfair competition." 

HP and Oracle are also still involved in a lawsuit over Oracle’s decision to stop developing software for the Itanium chip, which HP uses in a small number of servers.