March 7, 2003 (Computerworld) --
Three months after launching a campaign to protect its intellectual property rights, The SCO Group is suing IBM for more than $1 billion, charging the computer and software maker with misappropriation of trade secrets and other claims. In a lawsuit filed yesterday, the Lindon, Utah-based software vendor, which has owned the rights to the Unix operating system since 1995, alleged that IBM has "made concentrated efforts to improperly destroy the economic value of UNIX, particularly UNIX on Intel, to benefit IBM's new Linux services business." The 31-page lawsuit, filed in District Court in Salt Lake County, also charges IBM with tortious interference, unfair competition and breach of contract. IBM spokesman Mike Fay said today that the company is still reviewing the lawsuit, which it received this morning. "The complaint is full of bare allegations and no facts to support it," he said. "SCO never approached IBM ... in advance of filing it" to discuss the matter. Darl McBride, SCO's CEO since June, said in an interview this morning that the lawsuit was inspired by public comments made recently by IBM executives who have allegedly said they're moving features from IBM's AIX Unix into Linux to benefit enterprise customers as part of IBM's Linux strategy. The problem with that, McBride said, is IBM doesn't own AIX, but licenses it through SCO. "It goes to the heart of confidentiality agreements in AIX contracts," he said. "IBM has been publicly saying that they're OK putting AIX into open source, that it's not a problem for them," he said. "When you take our valuable intellectual property and say you're going to move it into open source, then we have a major problem." If IBM wants to make its own products, including WebSphere, Tivoli, Lotus and DB2, open source, that's fine with SCO, McBride said. "This case is about IBM making commitments to us and honoring them." In January, SCO announced that it was beginning an initiative to look into possible violations of its intellectual property rights to protect its interests (see story). The case against IBM is the first major effort in that fight. SCO had also announced the creation of a new division, SCOsource, to manage its intellectual property assets. Analyst Bill Claybrook at Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston said public statements from IBM executives may not be enough to prove SCO's case in terms of what IBM is doing with AIX and Linux. "What they have to prove is there was some code from AIX ... that actually made its way into Linux," Claybrook said. "That may not be hard to prove." Brian Ferguson, an intellectual property attorney at McDermott Will &
"Welcome to a special IT Blogwatch EXTRA: watching bloggers' reactions to the latest spectacular development in the standards war over..."
Read more...
"Stephen Spoonamore offers more details on what I was trying to drive home in my recent column: Because individual votes..."
Read more... Read more Government & Regulation posts or See all Blogs
Computerworld Technology Briefing: An open-source path to optimal virtualization
Download this Technology Briefing now! (Source: Novell/IBM/Intel) Virtualization is about a lot more than just lowering total cost of ownership. In fact users that have taken an open source path to virtualization have realized the additional, mission-critical benefit of markedly reduced IT complexity, as well as a more flexible infrastructure that is easier to change to meet shifting, often unpredictable business requirements. Download this executive briefing
Long Tail Supplier Collaboration - What's In It For You?
Long Tail Supplier Collaboration - What's In It For You? Download this webcast, free, compliments of Sterling Commerce Go to the webcast
Virtualization Everywhere
Download this white paper, free, compliments of Citrix. (Source: Citrix) Adoption of virtualization is concentrated among large enterprises, while adoption by mid-sized companies has been much slower. For these companies, the cost and complexity of server virtualization solutions has been a barrier.
In this paper, we'll discuss how Citrix XenServer" provides simple, economical server virtualization for any size company. Download now!
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Who writes Linux: Corporate America
The urban myth that Linux is written by unwashed, unemployed hackers living in their parents' basements should be long dead. Rather, it needs a shove back into its grave. ... [more]
See your link here
Subscribe to
Computerworld 
or
Other Legislation/Regulation Stories
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. 
Download this Technology Briefing now! 
Long Tail Supplier Collaboration - What's In It For You? 
Download this white paper, free, compliments of Citrix. 
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Who writes Linux: Corporate America
The urban myth that Linux is written by unwashed, unemployed hackers living in their parents' basements should be long dead. Rather, it needs a shove back into its grave. ... [more]
Computerworld