Teradata sues SAP over HANA

Teradata has accused SAP of copyright infringement in the development of its HANA in-memory database.

US-based Teradata filed a complaint against SAP in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on 20 June claiming "trade secret misappropriation, copyright infringement and antitrust violations".

German enterprise software giant SAP released its HANA (high-performance analytic appliance) database in 2011. It has since become a centrepiece of the company's enterprise offerings and is used by 10,000 organisations, SAP claims.

However, Teradata claims that it was developed as a result of misuse of its intellectual property and has been deployed to its detriment. In recent years Teradata has been broadening its scope from its data warehousing roots into the business analytics sphere.

The two companies entered into a joint development deal in 2008 to investigate combining SAP's ERP and reporting tools with Teradata's parallel processing architecture, but Teradata now claims that SAP did so in bad faith with the aim of gaining access to its IP in order to launch competitive products.

"As set forth in the complaint, Teradata is alleging that SAP has engaged in a decade-long campaign of anti-competitive behaviour, to the detriment of the parties' customers and Teradata alike," Teradata said in a statement.

"SAP lured Teradata into a purported joint venture in order to gain access to Teradata's valuable intellectual property. SAP's purpose for the joint venture was to steal Teradata's trade secrets, developed over the course of four decades, and use them to quickly develop and introduce a competing though inferior product, SAP HANA. Upon release of SAP HANA, SAP promptly terminated the joint venture, and SAP is now attempting to coerce its customers into using HANA only, to the exclusion of Teradata.

"Teradata supports competition and innovation in the data and analytics space. SAP's conduct, however, is neither pro-competitive nor innovative. We believe seeking relief through legal action against SAP is a necessary step to protect the rights and interests of our shareholders and all of our other stakeholders, including our customers.

The statement continues: "Teradata is seeking an injunction barring SAP's illegal conduct, monetary damages, and all other legal and equitable relief available under law and which the court may deem proper."

The company told eWeek that SAP ended the joint agreement as soon as HANA was launched and used it as a way of locking in its existing ERP customers.

"Upon release of its new product, SAP promptly terminated the parties' joint venture, and it is now attempting to coerce its customers into using HANA only, to the exclusion of Teradata, by forcing its customers to adopt HANA in exchange for upgrading their ERP Applications. Moreover, and on information and belief, SAP has begun significantly restricting Teradata's ability to access customers' SAP-derived data," it said.

SAP released the following statement: "SAP was surprised to learn of the complaint filed by Teradata earlier today in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Although SAP generally does not comment on pending litigation, SAP may issue a statement, if appropriate, after it has had an opportunity to review the complaint."