Oracle and Rimini Street both claim victory in long-running legal dispute

A federal judge has ruled that Rimini Street infringed copyrights on Oracle’s PeopleSoft ERP software in the course of providing third-party support to customers, but decided in favor of Rimini on other points. Judge Larry Hicks found that Rimini Street violated the copyrights when it installed copies of PeopleSoft on its computer systems so it could create software updates for customers, according to his ruling filed Feb. 13 in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

A federal judge has found that Rimini Street, which offers third-party support for enterprise software, infringed on some PeopleSoft copyrights. But, Judge Larry Hicks of the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas,  also found that Rimini Street did not infringe on Siebel or J.D. Edwards copyrights, as alleged by Oracle. The rulings are the latest wrinkle in a four-year old case filed by Oracle — which owns PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards — against Rimini Street. Oracle had previously sued TomorrowNow, a support company acquired by SAP– a top Oracle rival — with similar claims. In that case SAP ended up admitting liability. Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin was also co-founder of TomorrowNow.