Jury awards Informatica $25m

Informatica has been awarded $25m by a jury in the San Francisco federal court following a patent infringement case against a subsidiary of Business Objects.

The award was based on the finding that Business Objects has wilfully infringed on two Informatica patents in selling its Data Integrator product.

Informatica filed the suit against Business Objects in July 2002 asserting that the ActaWorks product (now sold by Business Objects as Data Integrator), infringes several Informatica patents including US patent numbers 6,014,670 and 6,339,775, both titled "Apparatus and Method for Performing Data Transformations in Data Warehousing."

On March 28, 2007, as part of these proceedings, the judge determined that Business Objects and customers' use of the Data Integrator product infringes on Informatica's patents.

Yesterday, a jury unanimously determined that the patents are valid and that Business Objects' infringement on Informatica's patents was done wilfully. The jury found a reasonable royalty for Business Objects' infringement to be $25m. The jury's determination that Business Objects' infringement was wilful allows the judge to increase this royalty damages award up to three times the amount agreed upon by the jury.

Informatica says it will ask for a permanent injunction preventing Business Objects from shipping the infringing technology now and in the future.

‘While we are disappointed with the jury’s decision, the case is not over,’ stated Brian Stine, acting general counsel of Business Objects. ‘The trial court must still determine whether Informatica engaged in inequitable conduct in failing to disclose prior art regarding these patents to the US Patent and Trademark Office. We remain confident that we will prevail.’