SAP Says Oracle Ad Copied Its Own

SAP, the world’s largest maker of business management software, contacted Oracle Corp. about advertisements it said copied its own, SAP spokesman Herbert Heitmann said.

“We need to see how they respond to our claim and then the lawyers will decide what the next steps are,” Heitmann said. SAP, which is based in Walldorf, Germany, said it hasn’t taken legal action.

Oracle, the No. 3 maker of business management software, this year started running print ads in magazines and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, saying “the best companies run Oracle applications.” SAP has run ads with the slogan “the best-run businesses run SAP” since 2000.

Karen Tillman, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle, said the company didn’t believe there was “legal merit to the claim.”

Oracle, she said, “has been running customer-reference ads like this for years, but had only just received this complaint from SAP.”

SAP’s U.S. shares, each representing a quarter of a German share, closed unchanged at $37.98 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Shares of Oracle fell 2 cents to $10.08 on Nasdaq. They have declined 24% this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that SAP had contacted Oracle over the ads.