Software licensing litigation is the body of court cases, arbitrations and regulatory proceedings over the terms on which software is licensed: how it may be used and counted, who may support it, whether copies may be resold, what may be copied from it, and whether the conditions of free and open-source licences are enforceable. The disputes usually combine a claim for breach of the licence agreement with a claim for copyright infringement, because using software outside the licence can be both.[9][22] Some disputes are brought under competition law instead.[14] Many settle on confidential terms, so published judgments are only part of the record.[2][25]
For software asset management (SAM), these cases are the places where courts have read licence metrics, audit clauses, use restrictions and open-source conditions and said what they mean. This article groups them by the kind of dispute and lists the cases covered in this wiki.
History
Early United States cases concerned whether mass-market licences bind the user at all. In 1996 the Seventh Circuit held in ProCD v. Zeidenberg that shrinkwrap licences “are enforceable unless their terms are objectionable on grounds applicable to contracts in general”.[17] Courts then divided over whether software distributed under a licence is sold or licensed, which decides whether a copy can be resold.[15][16]
From the late 2000s enterprise vendors litigated against third-party support providers over copying of their software and support materials,[11][9] and courts began to decide open-source licence claims.[22] In 2012 the Court of Justice of the European Union decided UsedSoft v Oracle on resale of downloaded software.[13] In 2017 the High Court in London ruled on “indirect” use of SAP software.[1] In 2021 the Supreme Court of the United States decided Google v. Oracle on copying of an application programming interface (API).[18] Since 2024, disputes over support and renewal terms after Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware have reached courts in the United States and the United Kingdom.[7][8]
Why licensing disputes reach court
Audits and overuse claims
Most enterprise licence agreements let the vendor verify usage. When an audit or self-declaration shows more deployments than licences, the vendor may sue for copyright infringement or for fees under the agreement, and a customer may sue to limit the audit. In VMware LLC v. Siemens AG, filed in the District of Delaware on 2025-03-21, VMware asserts copyright infringement against Siemens entities, and the public docket shows no termination date.[4] Attachmate Corporation v. Health Net, a copyright case filed in 2009, was closed in 2011 after summary judgment rulings.[5] Customers have also gone to court: as reported by InfoWorld, Mars sued Oracle in San Francisco Superior Court in 2015 to limit an Oracle licence review and dropped the case in December 2015, with no terms disclosed.[3] See software licence audit for the audit process itself.
Indirect access
Licences priced per named user raise the question whether people who never log in to the licensed system, but reach its data through another application, must be licensed. In SAP UK v Diageo the High Court held that, under the agreement in that case, only Named Users were authorised to use or access the mySAP ERP software “directly or indirectly”, and that use through Diageo’s Salesforce-based Gen2 and Connect systems entitled SAP to additional licence and maintenance fees, to be assessed separately.[1] A dispute between SAP and Anheuser-Busch, the United States arm of AB InBev, was resolved in arbitration: as reported by Computerworld, the parties settled on 2017-06-30 without disclosing terms.[2]
Cloud and virtualized deployment
Counting rules for virtual machines, partitions and public cloud are a recurring source of disagreement (see virtualization and partitioning). Regulators have examined the commercial effect of such rules. In its 2025 cloud services market investigation, the UK Competition and Markets Authority found that Microsoft does not make certain products available to AWS and Google through their licensing agreements, that customers with existing licences “cannot bring these to AWS and Google in most instances”, and that Microsoft’s licensing practices are “adversely impacting the competitiveness” of AWS and Google.[6]
Support and renewal after acquisitions
Changes of ownership can bring changes to support terms, product bundles and subscription models. As reported by TechTarget, AT&T sued Broadcom in New York Supreme Court in 2024 alleging that support contracts negotiated with VMware before the acquisition were not being honoured, and the parties reported a settlement in principle in December 2024 with terms undisclosed.[7] As reported by Computer Weekly, Tesco filed a claim in the English High Court on 2025-07-15 against Broadcom, VMware and its reseller over VMware licensing and support; the claim was pending in 2026.[8]
Third-party support
Independent support providers compete with vendors’ own maintenance, and the licence usually decides what copies of the software they may make. In Oracle v. Rimini Street the Ninth Circuit in 2018 affirmed that Rimini infringed Oracle’s copyrights by copying software under one customer’s licence for work for other customers, and reversed the judgment on state computer-access claims.[9] A second case between the companies was the subject of a confidential settlement agreement dated 2025-07-07, which Rimini disclosed in an SEC filing.[10] In Oracle v. SAP, over copying by SAP’s former TomorrowNow subsidiary, the Ninth Circuit in 2014 upheld setting aside a $1.3 billion jury award based on a hypothetical licence as speculative and directed the district court to offer Oracle a choice between a $356.7 million remittitur and a new trial.[11] The district court docket closed on 2014-11-14.[12]
Resale and exhaustion
Whether a used licence can be resold depends on whether the first transaction exhausted the copyright owner’s distribution right. In the European Union, UsedSoft v Oracle decided that exhaustion applies to online, download-based sales of copies of computer programs.[13][14] In the United Kingdom, ValueLicensing’s competition claim against Microsoft depends on that doctrine: in 2026 the Court of Appeal dismissed Microsoft’s appeals against the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s ruling on jurisdiction and its 2025 ruling deciding the copyright preliminary issues in ValueLicensing’s favour, leaving the damages claim to proceed.[14] In the United States, the Ninth Circuit held in Vernor v. Autodesk that Autodesk’s customers were licensees rather than owners of their copies, so a buyer from them could not rely on the first sale doctrine;[15] an earlier district court decision, Softman v. Adobe, had treated Adobe’s distribution of software as a sale rather than a licence.[16]
Copying of code and interfaces
Vendors also sue competitors over copying. In Google v. Oracle the Supreme Court held that Google’s copying of the Java SE API “was a fair use of that material as a matter of law”.[18] IBM’s copyright suit against Micro Focus over IBM’s CICS software, filed in the Southern District of New York in 2022, was settled in 2024.[19][30] In SCO v. IBM, over UNIX rights and Linux, the parties reached a settlement in August 2021 that the bankruptcy court approved, according to IBM’s filings.[20]
Competition law
Licensing terms can be attacked as anti-competitive. Teradata’s litigation against SAP included claims under the Sherman Act and for trade secret misappropriation, which the Ninth Circuit addressed in a 2024 appeal from the Northern District of California.[29] It ended in a settlement dated 2026-02-19 under which Teradata was to receive a gross payment of $480 million and the parties would ask the court to dismiss all claims with prejudice.[21] The ValueLicensing and CMA proceedings described above are also competition cases.[14][6]
Open-source licence enforcement
Open-source licences charge no fee but attach conditions, mostly to distribution. In Jacobsen v. Katzer the Federal Circuit held in 2008 that the Artistic License’s attribution and change-marking terms were conditions of the copyright licence, so that breaching them could be copyright infringement.[22] In Artifex Software v. Hancom a federal court in 2017 allowed a claim that the GNU GPL is also an enforceable contract to proceed, before the parties settled.[24][25] In Software Freedom Conservancy v. Vizio a purchaser, not a copyright holder, claims the GPL’s source-code rights as a third-party beneficiary; a federal court held the contract claim was not preempted by copyright, and the state court found the beneficiary question to be one of fact for trial.[26][27]
Cases covered in this wiki
Outcomes are as of 2026-09-30 and are stated only as far as the cited court records or official statements show. Case articles give the detail.
| Case | Forum | Subject | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProCD v. Zeidenberg (1996) | US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit | Contract formation (shrinkwrap) | Judgment for ProCD; shrinkwrap licence enforceable[17] |
| Adobe v. Softman (Softman v. Adobe, 2001) | US District Court, C.D. Cal. | Resale / exhaustion | Distribution treated as a sale[16] |
| SCO v. IBM | US District Court, D. Utah; 10th Circuit | Licence scope, copyright | Settled 2021, approved by bankruptcy court[20] |
| Oracle v. SAP (TomorrowNow) | US District Court, N.D. Cal.; 9th Circuit | Third-party support, copyright damages | 2014 appeal: $1.3 billion award set aside, remittitur of $356.7 million or new trial; docket closed 2014-11-14[11][12] |
| Jacobsen v. Katzer | US Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit; N.D. Cal. | Open-source licence (Artistic License) | Vacated and remanded 2008; stipulated permanent injunction 2010[22][23] |
| Attachmate v. Health Net | US District Court, W.D. Wash. | Audit / overuse, copyright | Docket closed 2011-01-04[5] |
| Vernor v. Autodesk (2010) | US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit | Resale / exhaustion | Customers were licensees; first sale unavailable[15] |
| UsedSoft v. Oracle (2012) | Court of Justice of the European Union | Resale / exhaustion | Exhaustion applies to downloaded copies[13][14] |
| Mars v. Oracle (2015) | San Francisco Superior Court | Audit | Dropped December 2015, as reported by InfoWorld[3] |
| SAP UK v. Diageo (2017) | High Court of England and Wales (TCC) | Indirect access | Liability judgment for SAP[1] |
| SAP v. AB InBev | Arbitration (American Arbitration Association) | Indirect access | Settled 2017-06-30, terms undisclosed, as reported by Computerworld[2] |
| Artifex Software v. Hancom | US District Court, N.D. Cal. | Open-source licence (GPL) | Settled 2017, terms confidential[25] |
| Oracle v. Rimini Street | US District Court, D. Nev.; 9th Circuit | Third-party support, copyright | Infringement affirmed 2018; second case settled 2025[9][10] |
| Google v. Oracle (2021) | Supreme Court of the United States | API copyright | Fair use as a matter of law[18] |
| Software Freedom Conservancy v. Vizio | Orange County Superior Court, California | Open-source licence (GPL, LGPL) | Pending[28] |
| IBM v. Micro Focus | US District Court, S.D.N.Y. | Code copyright | Settled 2024[19][30] |
| AT&T v. Broadcom (VMware) | New York Supreme Court | Support and renewal | Settled in principle December 2024, as reported by TechTarget[7] |
| VMware v. Siemens | US District Court, D. Del. | Audit / overuse, copyright | Open on the docket[4] |
| Tesco v. Broadcom (VMware) | High Court of England and Wales | Support and renewal | Pending, as reported by Computer Weekly[8] |
| Microsoft cloud licensing complaints | UK Competition and Markets Authority | Cloud licensing, competition | CMA final decision 2025 found adverse effects on competition from Microsoft’s licensing practices[6] |
| Teradata v. SAP | US District Court, N.D. Cal.; 9th Circuit | Competition law, trade secrets | Settled 2026, $480 million gross payment to Teradata[29][21] |
| ValueLicensing v. Microsoft | Competition Appeal Tribunal; Court of Appeal | Resale / exhaustion, competition law | Preliminary issues decided for ValueLicensing; Microsoft’s appeals dismissed 2026; damages claim pending[14] |
Out of scope
This article does not cover patent litigation, disputes over software development or implementation contracts that do not turn on licence terms, criminal software piracy prosecutions, or hardware. Allegations in pending cases are allegations only; this article does not predict outcomes.