Intellectual Property
Oracle Sues Procore, Claims Theft of Trade Secrets for ERP Integration
Oracle, Inc., has sued Procore in federal court in Northern California, accusing the construction management platform provider of stealing confidential information related to developing enterprise resource planning products for contractors.
Oracle's lawsuit, filed Oct. 28, alleges that former Oracle employee and Textura executive Mark Mariano took "thousands" of trade secrets to his new job at Procore when he was hired away in 2021. This allowed Procore to add connections to popular ERP software systems into its construction payment management platform, claims Oracle.
Attorneys for Oracle also not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit. An Oracle spokesperson said the company would have no further comment October 30 and Procore released a statement promising to fight the charges October 31.
"We are aware of the lawsuit filed against Procore. We believe the claims are meritless and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not be making further comments at this time," the Procore statement read.
The complaint details how Mariano led Oracle's team integrating contractor customers' payments software with the company's payment management platform, Textura. Mariano was a Textura executive when Oracle acquired the company in 2016 and held a leadership role in developing Textura's systems to integrate ERP systems with the platform until 2021, when he was hired away by Procore.
Contractors often face challenges tying the ERP systems that handle back-office functions into their construction management platforms, where payments and other data are often project-based rather than based around a firm's internal business practices. Textura was known for being able to simplify this integration for its customers.
According to the complaint, Mariano took "thousands" of files from Oracle to Procore including source code, customer information, research plans as well as two laptop computers belonging to Oracle. Mariano's laptop was eventually returned to Oracle. But Oracle alleges its own forensic data analysis discovered the laptop's hard drive had been wiped of data and that specific files had been removed. These included files entitled “TexturaCloud.zip” and “TexturaSPs.zip,” which Oracle said comprise over 50 proprietary and confidential Oracle SQL source code files (together with log files) developed by Oracle engineers and related to implementing its Textura Payment Management system Viewpoint Adapter. This is a technology Textura used to connect to ERPs.
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Oracle's complaint also states that when it approached Procore about these issues, Procore refused to provide "fulsome information concerning the full scope of access and use of Oracle materials."
The complaint further alleges that Oracle had agreed to an industry standard forensic inspection of Mariano's new Procore laptop for Oracle files but Procore would not agree to the terms, even though Mariano's personal counsel had already agreed to the inspection. Oracle decided to take legal action rather than resolve the matter through the ongoing discussions between the two companies, the lawsuit states.
ERP integrations are a growing business for both companies, and a long-standing request from contractors. Payments, invoicing, compliance, approvals and owner billing are all mentioned in the lawsuit as areas that Procore's new payments service touched via ERP integrations.
Oracle is seeking unspecified damages from Procore in addition to asking for the files back and that they cease to be used by Procore.
Update: An Oracle spokesperson said late on October 30 that it would have further comment on the lawsuit. Procore released its statement about the lawsuit October 31. This article was updated Oct. 31 to reflect those statements.
