SCO resumes litigation against IBM over UNIX rights

Litigation between SCO and IBM returns to US courts again. The process has been going on since 2003 and it seemed that it was completed in 2007, after the bankruptcy of SCO, and even more so after the court rejected any claims by SCO on the UNIX source codes in 2010 in the SCO v. Novell case. But no, this company has found new resources to continue the process and decided to return to court.

Recall that the SCO Group (formerly Caldera Systems) in 2000 bought the rights to the UnixWare and OpenServer operating systems, and since 2002 has initiated a number of lawsuits against companies that "illegally use UNIX code." The loudest was the process of SCO against IBM , the latter was accused of illegally entering code into the Linux kernel.

On June 14, 2013, Judge David Nuffer from the Utah District Court granted SCO 's request for a retrial against IBM.

David Nuffer admitted his mistake, which in April refused to resume the process . The judge apologized to both parties. He said that he was new to the process, which began ten years ago, and invited lawyers to inform him in more detail about the case materials.
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IBM lawyers experienced in similar processes filed a statement with the court that they were not against the resumption of the trial, but vice versa - they believe that it should be resumed, but only on condition that all the SCO claims that the court found invalid in the SCO process will be dropped. against Novell . That is, in reality, almost all the claims.

Judge Naffer listened to the advice of IBM - and resumed the process on the proposed terms.

1. SCO must submit a brief statement by June 24 stating that it rejects claims that were rejected in the case against Novell. At that time, the verdict was rendered that Novell did not transfer the copyright on UNIX to SCO (Caldera). This eliminates almost all of SCO’s claims against IBM, although SCO claims that two more points remain. Probably one of them - the accusation of unfair competition in the framework of the partnership Project Monterey.
2. IBM has the right to dispute the list by June 28, which it will certainly do, with the advancement of counterclaims.
3. IBM may, by July 15, file a statement indicating the intended court verdict for the SCO requirements and counter-claims, based on the outcome of the SCO process against Novell.
4. After reviewing this application, a resumption of the process will take place and a schedule will be approved for reviewing the opinions of the parties on issues that were considered during the SCO against IBM trial before the appointment of a new judge.

According to a lawyer from the independent Groklaw website, who has been monitoring SCO litigation since 2003, the new lawsuit involving IBM will be completed after point 3 .