SCO's 'case' against IBM takes yet another unexpected turn...
The case of SCO v IBM and the rest of the world has not been noted for being a textbook example of how to make money from litigation. Three years ago SCO filed a suit claiming that IBM incorporated part of SCO's copyrighted Unix based operating system into the open source Linux.
Last month the judge hearing the case finally lost patience with SCO's failure to to say exactly where the alleged copyright violations happened and threw out two thirds of SCO's claims.
Now, the case - which has not been without bizarre twists already (for instance, Novell claims that SCO doesn't own the intellectual property that it (SCO) says is being violated) - has taken yet another turn in the convoluted story. A new court filing by SCO suggests that the reason SCO is unable to support its claims with evidence is that IBM destroyed the evidence way back in 2003...
SCO claim that they've known about this since last March and it is in a sealed court filing, but it's only now that it's relevant. I'm no lawyer, and I know the law is arcane in nature and language, but it seems to me that producing new evidence and new claims in the middle of a case like this smacks of desperation on the part of a litigant with nothing left to lose!
Alan Lenton
22 June 2006
Last month the judge hearing the case finally lost patience with SCO's failure to to say exactly where the alleged copyright violations happened and threw out two thirds of SCO's claims.
Now, the case - which has not been without bizarre twists already (for instance, Novell claims that SCO doesn't own the intellectual property that it (SCO) says is being violated) - has taken yet another turn in the convoluted story. A new court filing by SCO suggests that the reason SCO is unable to support its claims with evidence is that IBM destroyed the evidence way back in 2003...
SCO claim that they've known about this since last March and it is in a sealed court filing, but it's only now that it's relevant. I'm no lawyer, and I know the law is arcane in nature and language, but it seems to me that producing new evidence and new claims in the middle of a case like this smacks of desperation on the part of a litigant with nothing left to lose!
Alan Lenton
22 June 2006