Oracle and Hewlett-Packard are headed back to court once again. This time Oracle is suing HP over its partnership with Terix Computer, a third-party seller of support services for Oracle products.
Oracle says HP “falsely represented to customers that HP and Terix could lawfully provide Solaris Updates and other support services at a lower cost than Oracle, and then worked with Terix to improperly access and provide Oracle’s proprietary Solaris Updates to customers,” according to the suit.
Oracle requires that customers using its proprietary operating systems seek technical support from them. The company protects ongoing support by copyrighting software patches. Oracle won a multi-million judgement against Terix last year for allegedly selling the copyrighted patches to its own customers, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Therefore, Oracle (ORCL) says that HP should have known that Terix could not legally provide support services, the suit alleges. It is looking to stop HP from providing support services for Oracle products and from working with third-parties that do so. It’s also looking for financial restitutions for what it says are “ill-gotten gains.”
A HP Enterprise (HPE) representative said it was company policy to avoid comment in ongoing legal cases.