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Software company SAP: World-leading through intellectual property theft?
- wayoutthere 5y agoWelcome to enterprise software, you must be new here. The big ERP vendors have armies of lawyers and patents that can stymie and delay any IP claims from smaller firms. At the same time, SAP has active relationships with all the customers who matter, and the SAP brand still carries weight, so their version of the product will almost always win a big chunk of market share, despite being inferior. The only reason there were consequences for SAP in this case is because they stole from Oracle; who invented this playbook.
- rapsey 5y agoDistribution trumps all in the enterprise space. If you have the distribution you can sell complete garbage for the price of gold, while sucker upstarts make quality products and live off crumbs.
- wayoutthere 5y agoRight; which is why the exit strategy in the enterprise software space is to get acquired by Oracle / SAP / Microsoft / Salesforce.
- logosmonkey 5y ago100% the amount of garbage product I have seen corporations buy is astounding cough Informatica cough. I have also never seen a piece of enterprise software that does half of what a VP was promised it would do.
- _Microft 5y agoDeepL translation [0] of the submitted article [1]: Software company SAP - With data theft to the top of the world? 12.11.2021 11:00 a.m., by Tim Bartz and Christian Bergmann, MDR According to research by Fakt and "Der Spiegel," the theft of intellectual property by SAP could have a long tradition. As early as 1997 to 2008, the company allegedly misused competitors' developments in cooperation with universities. Newly surfaced internal documents cast a dark shadow over the software company SAP, its management and supervisory board. According to research by the ARD magazine Fakt and "Der Spiegel," the picture of a company that apparently also tricked its way to the top of the world with unfair methods, especially theft of intellectual property, is emerging. The events date back to the 1990s and are recorded in an expert report by the law firm Linklaters from 2010. The report was commissioned by SAP itself. The background to this was the legal dispute with Oracle at the time. The U.S. archrival had sued SAP in 2007 because the Germans had gained access to copyrighted files from Oracle servers through the acquisition of the software service provider TomorrowNow. In a settlement, SAP later had to pay Oracle $357 million in damages. The Linklaters expert opinion was intended to clarify whether liability claims exist against the then executive board member Gerhard Oswald - Oswald was responsible for the TomorrowNow acquisition. The document contains numerous indications that Oswald and one of his employees knew about copyright infringements. In addition, the SAP Executive Board under CEO Henning Kagermann at the time allegedly approved everything. However, the company's top management did not draw any conclusions from the report. Oswald was even promoted, although the Linklaters lawyers had recommended that he be parted with "without making any noise". Oswald, a confidant of SAP founder and major shareholder Dietmar Hopp, remained on the executive board until 2016 and has been on the supervisory board since 2019. Dubious cooperation between University of Mannheim and SAP Fakt and "Spiegel" also report on a dubious cooperation between SAP and the University of Mannheim starting in 1997, in which Oswald again played a central role. This is also the subject of the report. Officially, the purpose of the cooperation was to have competing software examined by an independent institute, in this case the Business Informatics Research Group at the University of Mannheim. In fact, SAP employees spied on the competition under the guise of the cooperation. Even interventions by the legal department, the compliance team and the auditing department were largely ignored. According to information from Fakt and "Spiegel," SAP went all the way to the German Constitutional Court to prevent the Mannheim public prosecutor's office from using the report as evidence in an investigation against SAP executives for copyright infringement. Officials had come across the document in 2011 during a raid on the company's headquarters. Germany's highest court did not accept the constitutional complaint at the time. The criminal proceedings against the board members were dropped at the end of 2017, but SAP had to pay 250,000 euros to the state treasury. SAP said on request that the copyright infringements by TomorrowNow had been the subject of the proceedings with Oracle, which were settled amicably and had been concluded. The events surrounding the University of Mannheim had been comprehensively processed internally. The protection of intellectual property is the foundation of all SAP solutions. [0] https://www.DeepL.com/Translator https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/mdr/sap-geistiges-eigentum-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/mdr/sap-geistiges-eig...
- Rochus 5y agoGerman media seem to have a peculiar relationship with companies in their own country. Wirecard was hyped up by everyone, even when well-founded doubts were raised abroad. And now they are sawing SAP's leg. What are we to believe now?
- jahewson 5y agoThat a simplistic “good” and “bad” narrative that generalises the entire media into one homogenous blob carries no explanatory power?
- Rochus 5y agoToo many hard working people have lost too much money because of this incredible media failure to simply call it a "simplistic narrative". See e.g. https://www.infosperber.ch/wirtschaft/konzerne/wirecard-grossbetrug-zeigt-staerke-und-schwaechen-der-medien/ https://www.infosperber.ch/wirtschaft/konzerne/wirecard-gros...
- ttoinou 5y agoIP is not property (usus, fructus, abusus) so the concept of IP theft is not meaningful
- messe 5y agoThat argument may work in a first-year philosophy essay or—equivalently—a post on medium, but something tells me it's not going to hold up in a court, regardless of jurisdiction.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoThis is correct. IP usually refers to one of: - copyright - trademark - patent Which are legitimate legal constructs in their own right, but they're not property. In this case, I think we're talking about patent infringement. So long as both jurisdictions have agreed to recognize each other's patent laws, it may still be just as illegal as theft. Whether it's as immoral as theft is a different sort of thing (I say it isn't, which is why I nitpick like this).
- dathinab 5y agoIn this context we can exclude `trademark`. Also `copyright` is quite unlikely, too. So it's probably mostly patent impingement. And I think we all know how: - large cooperation infringe on patents of smaller ones without relevant consequences all the time - there is an endless number of complete absurd patents wrt. software. The patent system in context of software is fundamentally broken. - due to the US patent system being even more broken then the German one (was at the time the article refers to) the infringed patent might not even have been a valid patent. But what of this points apply to this specific case I don't know.
- dathinab 5y agoSo SAP as a "big cooperate" software concern isn't better then the other "big cooperate" software concerns. I know that is a bit sarcastic, but not only is IP theft of big software concerns pretty common (the article makes it look like a sensation, a bit (bad) surprise). But at the same time IP law is often so broken that you could say probably every larger software out there does somehow infringe on some IP. So without having details is naught impossible to say if it's IP theft which should be IP theft, or IP theft which is only IP theft due to broken laws, and might also not be judged as IP theft after going through a expensive many year law-suite. And the article fails to lay down why it's the former (ethical questionable IP theft) instead of the later (ethical questionable IP claims). Through I wouldn't be surprising if it is ethical questionable IP theft. But I would even be less surprised if it a mixture of both.
- dathinab 5y agoFor example: > konkurrenzsoftware [..] untersuchen zu lassen (roughly ~ Investigate the software of the competition.) is in the article made to sound bad, dodgy borderline illegal (and maybe was). But then investigating the marked and your competition is one of the most fundamental practices when it comes to competing on the marked as a large cooperation...
- oytis 5y agoUntersuchen sounds more like examining the details of how the software works (up to reverse engineering) to me, not market research.
- dathinab 5y agoThe word "Untersuchen" doesn't contain any notation about into how much detail you go into. It can be used in pretty much any context where you "look into something" from marked research to reverse engineering. Which brings us to the point that the article is missing details relevant for doing a judgement yourself, instead it does a judgement for you and then expect you to adapt that judgement without questioning it. For example the article could have stated that the students investigated the inner workings of the competitors software, it doesn't. It just states that the uni did some research into the competitors software, without stating the depth of the research and kind of research they did into it. (E.g. they could have research usability of "xxx software solutions" across the marked (including SAP) with SAP using that to gain a upper hand (== marked research), or they could have researched how "subset of xxx software solutions" handle case Y internally (== not-just marked research).)
- intunderflow 5y agoLike many laws, IP law doesn't apply to big powerful companies unless they go after another big company
- ldiracdelta 5y agoThe counter-balance to big scary corporations that can't be challenged because of infinite pockets for lawyers is "loser pays tort reform"
- blincoln 5y agoThe possibility of losing and having to pay for all of those corporate lawyers in addition to one's own lawyers seems like an even bigger disincentive to me. What am I missing?
- no_wizard 5y agoIt’s intended to incentive legitimate cases, the natural order effect here is that lawsuits would be more grounded in reality
- ohgodplsno 5y agoUnfortunately, <MegaCorp> has the ability to send dozens of lawyers at the case, billing them into the millions. You are a small company that happens to have your idea stolen. Even if you are sure that you would win, would you still do it ? If you lose, not only is your idea theirs, but your company is now millions in debts. Why could they win ? Most likely because of the dozens of lawyers they have, that are very likely extremely used to whatever tribunal you may have picked, and can find the smallest flaw in your suit.
- ldiracdelta 5y agoYes, you only take action once you're sure you're right and you'll win--that's the beauty. Currently, if you're up against megacorp, you're almost literally betting the farm and you're almost guaranteed to go bankrupt because big Corp will try to make you go bankrupt before you win anything. Loser-pays, you actually have a chance to not go bankrupt, because the big Corp will be paying. The lawyers on your side will know this and if they're able to do economic + probabilistic reasoning, they realize that even though you're out of money, big corp is their real payer and thus they can keep fighting. Each lawyer is constantly evaluating the probability that the loser can pay and thus driving toward quick settlement.
- pr07ecH70r 5y agoAlle Unternehmen stehlen Ideen von jungen Studenten voller Hoffnungen und Träume. Sehr heuchlerisch aber auch sehr lustig, dass diese Nachrichten gerade jetzt herauskommen... Aka, big companies are full of c*p!
- bsedlm 5y agoIntellectual Property is a dumb idea, a legacy of thousands of years of exclusive (physically unique) markets of goods (i.e. making copies is expensive). Digital artifacts require a new non-exclusive property market scheme (to be determined; it's a difficult problem). Enforcing the older paradigm with laws and coercion is not a long term solution.
- brighton36 5y agoAgreed. I would add that 'Intellectual property' is mostly postmodern nonsense. No different than calling our bits 'Digital Gold' and proceeding to construct legislation based on the proton configuration of said bits.
- kristaps 5y agoSure, copies are cheap, but producing the original is often not. Unrestricted copying would discourage quite a few projects being started due to not having any chance to recoup investment. While IP may be a flawed tool at times, it still is a useful tool.
- cma 5y agoThere are alternatives with no artificial scarcity, this one is public funds for everyone to make patreon style grants to creatorsthey support (2003): https://cepr.net/report/the-artistic-freedom-voucher-internet-age-alternative-to-copyrights/ https://cepr.net/report/the-artistic-freedom-voucher-interne...
- dghlsakjg 5y agoI think that the problem is that patent law allows for broad software concepts that have never been implemented. And it ignores differences in implementation. Can you imagine if copyright law allowed for things as broad as: “A novel or series of novels where a boy is educated at a school for wizards”. That’s what amazons 1-click patent was like. It was more or less: we will allow a client device to send both a product id and a user id by clicking a button, that will then cause a purchase to be made for that product and client. That patent caused something as trivial as “buy now” to be locked up by Amazon for years.
- transitory_pce 5y agokonse bhasa mein likhe hai ye article?
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoAt the same time, I'm pretty familiar with the case of patent troll (OK, maybe not a full patent troll in the complete sense in that they did have a selling product at one time, but a troll in the sense that the patent was complete bullshit) where SAP lost a $400 million dollar patent lawsuit (surprise surprise, in Eastern Texas jurisdiction), appealed it all the way to the SCOTUS who declined to hear it, settled with Versata, the patent troll, and then the original patent was declared invalid [1]. Must be nice to have collected major coin on a patent that's not even valid. Point is that at this level there is tons of corporate IP bullshit going around, it's basically a required part of playing the game. 1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sap-se-versata-patent-idUSKCN0PJ2LS20150709 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sap-se-versata-patent-idU...
- silexia 5y agoThe entire patent system is ridiculous. Every new idea is a tiny little increment on the vast mountain of human knowledge. No one should own it and prevent others from building further structures on top of that. Everyone here on HN knows that ideas are worthless and execution is everything.
- eulgro 5y agoDon't patent drive innovation though? Companies must find alternatives to compete instead of copying everything from the industry leader. Other than that I agree that patents are ridiculous.
- docflabby 5y agoEvery world leading company won it's position though unfair advantage. Those are normally breaking laws, fraud, stealing technology or slave labour. None of them are there on merit.
- ericd 5y agoWhich of those got Google to where they are? Apple?
- cheschire 5y agoI'm pretty sure there are multiples of movies made about Apple's journey that you may be interested in. As for Google, do you recall from the last 20 years any of the complaints about SEO fairness, AMP drama, Chrome monopoly, etc? This feels like a bait question because the answers are so obvious.
- ericd 5y agoI don't think any of those obviously match any of the categories that the parent comment mentioned. It's even less clear that any of them were central to the success.
- dtech 5y agoindeed, all of these issues were problems only because they were already dominant
- rStar 5y agowell, you are outing yourself as one who doesn’t recognize reality. now, if you are getting a paycheck from google, fine, feed yourself and your family. otherwise you’re a shill dude. live it, love it, waste the only life you have. your choice good for you. like heroin, but more profitable and not as fun.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y agoAll of the controversial stories about Google were long after Google took-over as the best (yes, actual best) search-engine.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- shambo76 5y agoArticle reads like something sponsored by American interests.
- natded 5y agoTheir products make me want to kms thats all I know.
- deanCommie 5y agoSAP is also a big conglomerate full of aquisitions that shouldn't be tainted with this... In the 90's I worked at Seagate Software in Vancouver, BC, which made Crystal Reports (A million readers just either felt a wave of nostalgia or a shudder of disgust). Seagate Software became Crystal Decisions, got acquired by Business Objects, which got acquired by SAP. I wonder how much of the SAP work in Vancouver today is still on something related to Crystal Reports...
- jeabays 5y agoThere is nothing wrong with "intellectual property" "theft", it overwhelmingly benefits everyone BUT the western multinational megacorporations, so I wholeheartedly support "intellectual property" appropriation.