Context: Enterprise resource planning software giant SAP, founded in Germany in 1972 and the only European startup in more than 50 years to have attained a market capitalization of several hundred billion dollars, used to be exclusively on the receiving end of patent litigation for more than a half-century, and typically in the U.S. much more so than in Europe. While it lobbied the EU institutions more than 20 years ago for a broad scope of patent-eligibility of software-related inventions (“software patents”), it has recently been a rather active member of IP2Innovate, a virtual lobbying organization that campaigns in the EU (and also did so in connection with Germany’s 2021 update to its patent law) for a strong proportionality principle and, conversely, against the near-automatic issuance of patent injunctions after a patent has been found infringed. It only started in early 2025 with its lawsuits against TMX Group, the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and Trayport to assert patents against others.
What’s new: SAP is asserting at least one patent against a rival. SAP is suing Celonis in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) over EP3913496 (“Enabling data access by external cloud-based analytics system”). Celonis is Germany’s most successful software startup of recent years. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) comapny was founded in 2011 as a spinoff from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and received support from SAP’s own startup accelerate program in 2012, but the relationship has recently turned sour, with Celonis bringing a U.S. antitrust complaint against SAP in the Northern District of California (which was dismissed for the largest part, but can be amended) and SAP now asserting at least one patent against Celonis.
Direct impact: It is rather likely that SAP is seeking a multi-country patent injunction. The UPC could also award damages, but injunctive relief is what patentees typically prioritize in that court.
Wider ramifications: This patent assertion comes with two risks for SAP. Celonis, which is relying on the same law firm in the UPC as in the Northern District of California (Hogan Lovells), will presumably try to portray this move as a manifestation of SAP’s allegedly anticompetitive intentions . And while SAP can argue that this case is different from, for example, patent infringement actions brought by non-practicing entities, it means that IP2Innovate’s largest (by market capitalization) European member is no longer a purely defensive player in European courts. In retrospect this newly-arisen situation validates the decision by SAP lawyers and lobbyists more than 20 years ago to advocate broad software patent-eligibility, not because SAP had any particular target in mind at the time but because they understood strategically that a situation could arise in the future where SAP might want to defend its turf with IP.
The case number is ACT_29431/2025.
It was formally received by the UPC’s Dusseldorf Local Division (LD) on June 21, 2025 and assigned to the following panel: Presiding Judge Ronny Thomas, Judge Dr. Jule Schumacher and Judge Dr. Walter Schober (Vienna, Austria).
SAP’s complaint was filed by Jones Day’s Gerd Jaekel. Jones Day is also SAP’s go-to firm for competition cases and is defending it against Celonis’s U.S. antitrust case (so far rather successfully, though it’s not over yet).
Celonis is being defended by Hogan Lovells (counsel of record: Dr. Martin Adrian Koch, a senior associate; it’s a safe assumption that a Hogan Lovells partner will be lead counsel).
Celonis is one of Europe’s very few “decacorns”: unicorns are companies with a billion-dollar valuation, and decacorns are worth $10B+. On the secondary market its shares may recently have traded at a price suggesting a valuation below $10B, though.
We do not know which particular claim(s) SAP is asserting, but here’s the language of claim 1, which relates to interoperability between a first system (such as SAP’s enterprise resource planning software) and a second system, which comes with an analytics engine (such as Celonis’s process mining solution or SAP’s own analytics service):
A computer-implemented method for accessing data provided in a first system by a database, DB, -based analytics engine (270) of a second system, the method being executed by one or more processors and comprising:
- retrieving metadata associated with data stored within a database system (226) of an enterprise, the metadata being provided in a first format and being used by the first system to store and access the data, wherein the metadata defines how data is stored and accessed within the database system (226), and comprises entity definitions and relationships between entities;
- providing a document including the metadata provided in an interoperable format, wherein the interoperable format is not bound to any analytics engine (270);
- processing, by a deployer (218), the document to provide analytics engine metadata in a second format, the analytics metadata being stored in the second system and being consumable by the DB-based analytics engine (270) to access the data from the database system (226) of the enterprise, wherein the deployer (218) transforms the metadata from the interoperable format to the second format that is specific to the DB-based analytics engine (270) and wherein the analytics metadata comprises one or more of data definition language statements to create or delete objects within the database system (226) and/or data modification language statements to insert, update or delete data within the database system (226); and
- retrieving, by the DB-based analytics engine (270), the data from the database system (226) of the enterprise based on the analytics metadata to provide analytics data based on the data.
This could be the first case in which the UPC will have to address the patent-eligibility of software-related inventions. While many hardware components are referenced in the patent specification, the claimed innovation is all about a software interoperability architecture and focuses very much on the types of data that are exchanged and processed.
The U.S. antitrust action
Celonis brought its U.S. antitrust complaint in March 2025 (PDF). On June 30, 2025, thus at least nine days after SAP’s UPC complaint, United States District Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed virtually all of the 11 claims, with only 1 limited claim over interference with contracts remaining (PDF), but Celonis was allowed to amend the complaint.
[Update on July 22, 2025]
Celonis has just filed an amended complaint (still on July 21, 2025 just before midnight by local time). Here’s a redlined public version:
Based on a full-text search, the amended complaint does not appear to mention the UPC case, which would not impact the U.S. market anyway.
[/Update]
When SAP filed its UPC complaint, it may already have been optimistic that Celonis’s U.S. case would be thrown out for the largest part.
The accusations Celonis made in its U.S. complaint are centered around interoperability:
“SAP is leveraging its control over its ERP ecosystem and the impending forced migration of customers to SAP’s S/4HANA cloud-based ERP solution to prevent SAP customers from sharing their own data with third-party providers, including Celonis, without paying prohibitively expensive fees”
Celonis can try to revive the dismissed claims through an amended complaint and, if necessary, on appeal. Judge Chhabria urged a settlement, and it’s possible that SAP’s UPC case is meant to put additional pressure on Celonis to settle globally.
For the period until the U.S. antitrust case is resolved, SAP has made some temporary concessions (June 26, 2025 TechTarget article).
German preliminary investigations
As German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported last month (June 11, 2025 Wirtschaftswoche article), the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) of Germany has apparentlys sent questionnaires to Celonis customers. Depending on what the German antitrust agency finds out, a formal inquiry is conceivable.
Like in the U.S. action, a key question is whether SAP engaged in some sort of foreclosure after its acquisition of Celonis competitor Signavio.