NEW YORK – A federal jury in Detroit ordered Ford Motor Co to pay Versata Software program Inc $104.6 million in damages for breaching a 2004 licensing contract and misappropriating commerce secrets and techniques.
Jurors deliberated over two days earlier than holding Ford liable on Wednesday, following a 15-day trial.
Versata, based mostly in Austin, Texas, mentioned it licensed its automotive software program to Ford from 1998 to 2015, serving to the automaker’s engineers and advertising and marketing brokers collaborate on and design automobiles with “seamless actual time updates” worldwide.
It mentioned Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford started copying its software program after rising weary of paying tens of millions of {dollars} in annual licensing charges, and in 2014 rejected a “closing” provide to license Versata’s main software program for $17 million a yr.
Greater than $82.2 million of the jury award was for breach of contract, with the remaining $22.4 million for commerce secret misappropriation. Versata’s damages skilled testified that the corporate suffered $59.9 million in commerce secret damages.
“Whereas we respect the jury’s determination, we imagine the info and the regulation don’t assist this final result,” Ford mentioned in a press release on Wednesday. “Ford will attraction the decision.”
Legal professionals for Versata didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The litigation started in April 2015, when Ford sought a courtroom order that it didn’t infringe Versata’s mental property.
The case is Versata Software program Inc et al v Ford Motor Co, U.S. District Courtroom, Jap District of Michigan, No. 15-10628.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Further reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Modifying by Bernadette Baum)