Litigation between IBM and disgraced UNIX vendor SCO is set to be reactivated, Groklaw reports. The lawsuits, which were subject to an automatic stay imposed by the bankruptcy court, will now go forward and finally be brought to a close.
SCO is infamous for launching a misguided legal assault on the Linux operating system. The company claimed that IBM misappropriated code from UNIX and integrated it into the open source Linux kernel. SCO never managed to support this claim with evidence and the company's own internal code audits suggest that the allegation is baseless. The real roadblock that SCO faced, however, was the fact that they don't even own the UNIX copyrights.
The IBM litigation was put on hold pending the outcome of a dispute over the ownership of the System V UNIX copyrights between SCO and Novell, the rightful owner. The courts ruled in Novell's favor, finding that SCO did not obtain the copyrights in an asset purchase agreement that was made in the '90s. This effectively means that SCO doesn't have standing to sue IBM for allegedly infringing UNIX copyrights. SCO slid into bankruptcy and has never recovered.
The reactivation of the litigation between IBM and SCO is largely a procedural matter aimed at resolving the pending claims and counterclaims that the companies have brought against each other. Due to the court's previous conclusion that Novell is the rightful owner of UNIX, the reactivated litigation between SCO and IBM isn't going to be an opportunity for SCO to turn the tide in its favor.
IBM has a number of counterclaims against SCO that will finally be addressed by the courts. IBM is accusing SCO of breach of contract, violating the Lanham Act, engaging in unfair and deceptive trade practices, and violating the GNU General Public License. IBM is also seeking a declaratory judgement which will affirm that IBM's AIX platform doesn't infringe on any of SCO's copyrights.
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