Emptoris, a privately held supply management software company that provides a vendor management system, announced Thursday that revenue rose 6% in 2009 and by more than 20% in the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis.

The company also said it added several new customers over the past year including mining company Anglo American, China National Offshore Oil and Deutsche Telekom.

Emptoris' VMS ranked as the largest VMS in terms of spend for project-based services performed under a statement of work, according to the 2009 VMS and MSP Supplier Competitive Landscape report by Staffing Industry Analysts. It also ranked as the largest VMS in outsourced service contracts spend.

Earlier this month, Emptoris and Ariba Inc., a maker of procurement software, announced that the ruling of a federal district court in a patent infringement case brought against Emptoris by Ariba was upheld by an appeals court.

Ariba announced on Jan. 12 that a federal appeals court upheld a district court's finding in October 2008 that Emptoris infringed on two patents. Ariba said Emptoris now owes Ariba $7 million in the case.

Emptoris announced Jan. 13 that the appeals court decision will have no impact on its operations or customers. A software patch was released in December 2008 to replace the functionality in the code covered by the patents, according to Emptoris. And the two functions in question related to bid overtime rules and preliminary bids and were used by less then 5% of Emptoris' customers, according to the company. Emptoris said the original lawsuit filed in April 2007 also included other patent infringement claims that were later dropped, dismissed or ruled invalid.