Oracle recently filed a lawsuit against SAP, alleging theft of intellectual property (IP) by SAP's TomorrowNow subsidiary.

The lawsuit claims that TomorrowNow allegedly misappropriated IP in the form of proprietary product and support information from Oracle, through its activities in providing third-party support for Oracle customers.

Although research firm Gartner believes that it is too early to speculate on the potential outcomes of the case, it suggests that enterprises should now take time to consider implications of any third-party support arrangements.

Historically, software vendors have not challenged systems integrators providing support services on the customer's behalf during implementation or while in production, as long as the customer also continued to have an active maintenance agreement with the original software vendor. However, in this situation, TomorrowNow has replaced Oracle's maintenance and support entirely, and Oracle claims that such support is being facilitated by illegally accessing Oracle's IP, rather than by working directly with the customer's own copies of the Oracle source code.

Gartner maintains that enterprises must take care to protect themselves contractually from potential misdeeds of the third-party support provider.

The research firm believes that TomorrowNow customers need to evaluate their contracts with Oracle and TomorrowNow to ensure there are no conflicts regarding third-party support. Customers have also been recommended to monitor the legal action's progress, as a ruling in Oracle's favour could result in disallowing third-party use of its products when providing support on the client's behalf.

The research firm also urges customers to ask TomorrowNow to provide written confirmation that it has not used their company log-on IDs to download software or support materials that the company is not licensed to use.

With regards to Oracle customers, Gartner recommends that they evaluate existing application maintenance contracts to confirm that the contract language allows third parties to act on your behalf in accessing IP of the independent software vendor.