On Tuesday, Oracle America Inc. and Oracle International Corporation filed suit against Envisage Technologies LLC for misappropriating a version of Oracle Database, its proprietary data storage, retrieval, and manipulation software. The San Francisco, California lawsuit contended that Envisage is using its unlicensed access to Oracle’s product to obtain subscription revenue from its customers.
According to the filing, Envisage is an independent software vendor that specializes in developing, marketing, and selling software solutions. As such, it reportedly “hosts data for large customer accounts, including federal, state, and local government entities that typically have large workloads.”
Oracle stated that in 2006, Envisage purchased a perpetual license and support services for Oracle Database Standard Edition 1 (SE1) for $8,500, as an initial pilot for one account. Reportedly, that license permits Envisage to run SE1 on two processors, with internet hosting rights, which allow Envisage to offer the programs to its end users for their internal business operations.
On information and belief, the filing stated, Envisage deploys its applications on Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). That platform reportedly prohibits “customers from hosting proprietary applications on Amazon RDS using Oracle Database unless they own the appropriate supported Oracle Licenses purchased from Oracle.”
The plaintiff asserted that Envisage is running its Database SE1 on eight or more processors as an Amazon RDS customer, in violation of its licensing agreement with Oracle and Amazon’s policies.
The complaint included one count of federal copyright infringement for Envisage’s allegedly unauthorized use. Oracle requested declaratory relief, damages, including treble damages for willful infringement, and its attorneys’ fees and costs.
Oracle is represented by The Norton Law Firm PC.
