Intellectual Property News and Reports

The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of SAP SE in Teradata Corporation’s action alleging that SAP illegally conditioned sales of its business-management software on sales of its back-end database engine in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, and misappropriated Teradata’s trade secrets in violation of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of SAP on Teradata’s tying claim under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. As an initial matter, the panel held that the district court abused its discretion by excluding an expert’s testimony on market definition and the marketpower conclusions that followed from it. With the expert’s testimony, the panel held that Teradata raised a triable issue as to market power in the tying market under either of two different analytical frameworks—the per se rule and the rule of reason—and therefore the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of SAP on Teradata’s tying claim.

The panel also reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of SAP on Teradata’s trade secrets claim because Teradata created triable disputes as to whether it properly designated the batched merge method—a technique for efficient aggregation of large batches of data—as confidential information under the parties’ agreements, and whether the parties’ agreements gave SAP a license to use the batched merge method in its products.

Download TERADATA CORPORATION V. SAP SE