INQUIRER Top 5 IT Espionage Stories

ORACLE'S DARK charges against SAP are nothing new in the high-stakes world of IT intellectual property and trade secrets…

5. Eugene Wang. Philippe Kahn rarely hid his light under a bushel when CEO of Borland - and even now is said to rarely require such an item. Aside from creating software price wars, sending customers a CD of his saxophone playing and various other stunts, Kahn's Borland sued his erstwhile VP Eugene Wang for alleged theft of Borland secrets when Wang decamped for Symantec. The suit fizzled out but Borland never capitalised on the pricey acquisition of old sparring partner Ashton-Tate and to this day has never quite recovered the chutzpah of the Kahn days.

4. Oracle's garbologists. Larry Ellison will inevitably be reminded by SAP supporters that he who is not without sin should not pelt the first stone - especially if he is in a glass house while dressed as a pot describing a kettle as black. In 2000, it was revealed that the database giant had sanctioned agents to sort through two advocacy groups' rubbish. The groups had been supportive of Microsoft, thereby raising Oracle suspicions. "We weren't spying," Ellison said. "We were trying to expose what Microsoft was doing."

3. Intel v Broadcom. Also in 2000, Intel sought an injunction against Broadcom, alleging that the latter had interviewed Intel staff with a view to gaining insights about the chip giant. Some observers believe that the dispute has helped maintain a lingering antipathy.

2. Reds under the bed. The US is particularly concerned - some say paranoid - about threats from abroad. In 2003 Cisco sued Chinese firm Huawei, alleging copyright infringement, while another Chinese employee of imaging software firm 3DGeo was jailed for downloading source code.

1. HP, of course. The ancient jest has it that if HP had invented sushi it would have called it cold wet fish but it seemed unlikely that the Silicon Valley legend could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after Mark Hurd had made a flawless start to his career as HP CEO. HP was beating up Dell in PCs, had reorganised was being smiled on by Wall Street. All in all it seemed to have put the troubled days of Carly Fiorina's reign behind it. Then chairman Patty Dunn had a bright idea about finding out where boardroom leaks were coming from… µ