Oracle America, Inc. v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., No. 19-15506 (9th Cir. 2020)
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Oracle, owner of the proprietary Solaris software operating system, filed suit alleging that HPE improperly accessed, downloaded, copied, and installed Solaris patches on servers not under an Oracle support contract. Oracle asserted direct copyright infringement claims for HPE's direct support customers, and indirect infringement claims for joint HPE-Terix customers. The district court granted summary judgment for HPE.
The Ninth Circuit held that the copyright infringement claim is subject to the Copyright Act's three year statute of limitations, which runs separately for each violation. The panel explained that Oracle's constructive knowledge triggered the statute of limitations and Oracle failed to conduct a reasonable investigation into the suspected infringement. The panel also held that the intentional interference with prospective economic advantage claim is barred by California's two year statute of limitations. Therefore, the panel affirmed the district court's partial summary judgment for HPE on the infringement and intentional interference claims. The panel also affirmed in part summary judgment on the indirect infringement claims for patch installations by Terix; reversed summary judgment on all infringement claims for pre-installation conduct and on the direct infringement claims for unauthorized patch installations by HPE; and addressed all other issues in a concurrently filed memorandum opinion.
Court Description: Copyright. The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. in a copyright infringement action brought by Oracle America, Inc., and Oracle International Co. Oracle, owner of the proprietary Solaris software operating system, granted customers a limited use license and required customers to have a prepaid annual support contract to access patches for a server. Oracle alleged that HPE improperly accessed, downloaded, copied, and installed Solaris patches on servers not under an Oracle support contract. HPE provided support for all of its customers’ servers, including servers running Solaris software, and it subcontracted indirect support to Terix Computer Co. Oracle asserted direct copyright infringement claims concerning HPE’s direct support customers, and it asserted indirect infringement claims concerning joint HPE- Terix customers. The panel affirmed the district court’s partial summary judgment for HPE on claims for copyright infringement and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage based upon the statute of limitations. Following a prior suit by Oracle against Terix, Oracle and HPE entered into an agreement, effective May 6, 2015, to toll the statute ORACLE AMERICA V. HEWLETT PACKARD ENTER. 3 of limitations for any claims that Oracle might assert against HPE. The panel held that under the Copyright Act’s three- year statute of limitations, Oracle’s copyright infringement claims were barred for conduct before May 6, 2012. The panel concluded that Oracle had constructive knowledge and thus a duty to investigate but did not conduct a reasonable investigation into the suspected infringement. The panel held that under a California two-year statute of limitations, the IIPEA claim was barred for conduct before May 6, 2013. As to remaining infringement claims, the panel affirmed in part the district court’s summary judgment on indirect infringement claims for patch installations by Terix. The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment on all infringement claims for pre-installation conduct and on direct infringement claims for unauthorized patch installations by HPE. As to indirect infringement, the panel held that in interpreting Oracle’s licenses, the district court erred by failing to consider pre-installation conduct. As to direct infringement, the panel held that for certain customers, referred to as “non-Symantec customers,” Oracle possibly could provide unauthorized installations by HPE. Summary judgment for HPE on the direct infringement claims concerning customer Symantec was also improper. The panel addressed other issues in a concurrently filed memorandum disposition.
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