Accenture Sues Guidewire Over Claims Tech Patent

The Accenture consulting firm in New York filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing Guidewire Software Inc. of patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets involved with Accenture claims management technology.

The company, in an action filed in the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., said Guidewire infringed its patent protecting Accenture Claim Components Solution, an insurance claims management technology that Accenture licenses to the insurance industry.

In response, John Raguin, Guidewire's chief executive officer, said in a statement that his firm “did not and would not misappropriate trade secrets or willfully infringe on any patents. We conduct our business with the utmost integrity. We will review the details of the allegations and respond in the appropriate manner.”

The statement said Guidewire was not previously aware of the patent that Accenture mentioned in its announcement.

Accenture's suit alleges that Guidewire misappropriated Accenture trade secrets relating to the design, coding and implementation of claims management technology that Accenture has developed and patented.

An Accenture spokesman, said the company became suspicious of its competitor because Guidewire's claims management software had arrived too quickly and the product development trajectory was too fast to be a coincidence.

“We compared our patent to information available about Guidewire software and concluded Guidewire had infringed on, and gained access to Accenture trade secrets,” said Sean Conway.

Accenture, in its statement, said that its claims management software is the result of “more than a decade of development and tens of millions of dollars of investment… and is protected by the patent and copyright laws of the United States and other countries, as well as the trade secret laws of Delaware and other states and countries.”

The company's complaint said it believes Guidewire “willfully and deliberately developed, manufactured, used and sold, or offered for sale, computer software and services used for insurance claims management” covered by Accenture's patent.

Guidewire, it was charged, “willfully and maliciously obtained and used or intends to use Accenture trade secrets without authorization in designing, developing, manufacturing and selling claims management software and services to assist it in its ongoing efforts to unfairly compete against Accenture in the claims management market.”

Pierre Nanterme, Accenture group chief executive for financial services, said his firm has a “long history of designing and developing innovative, technology-based solutions that help our clients transform their businesses and achieve high performance. As part of our ongoing efforts to defend vigorously our intellectual property rights around the world, we intend to take actions like this lawsuit to be sure that our intellectual property is not unfairly exploited.”

Accenture is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction to stop Guidewire from engaging in acts of infringement or use of trade secrets associated with these products and services.