Oracle filed a lawsuit against its rival SAP, accusing it of hacking in its computers and stealing vital product information.

The suit was filed on March 22 in U.S. Federal District Court in the Northern District of California . Among the claims made against SAP are violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Unfair Competition, Intentional and Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage and Civil Conspiracy.

Oracle claims that it has discovered that SAP "was engaged in systematic, illegal access to ? and taking from ? Oracle?s computerized customer support systems." In addition, the company accuses German SAP that it had stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle had developed to service its own support customers.

Both Oracle and SAP have been locked for years in the battle for the highly lucrative market for enterprise software.