of Hebron, Illinois, paid SSA a one-time US$87,000 fee for the nine-module enterprise resource planning suite and used it "unmolested" for more than 20 years, according to a complaint the manufacturer filed earlier this month in US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

Vaughan & Bushnell, which makes hammers, pry bars and other hand tools, also received a software upgrade in October 1987. But since then, the company received no maintenance or installed upgrades from SSA and did not hear from Infor until last July, the complaint states.

The current dispute revolves around the hardware being used to run the software.

Initially, Vaughan & Bushnell installed the suite on an IBM System/38 minicomputer, which it replaced in 1993 with an AS/400. In 1999, it upgraded once more, to an IBM AS/400E, according to the filing.

In 1993, an SSA official told the company a "small re-licensing fee" would be required due to the AS/400 upgrade, the complaint states.