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IBM moves against SCO

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 8 Aug 2003 at 09:24

IBM has responded to SCO's allegation of contract breach with a countersuit of its own: alleging patent infringement, breach of licence and loss of business from SCO's actions.

New York-based IBM filed the countersuit in a Federal court in Utah, claiming SCO had infringed four of its patents and broken the terms of the General Public Licence, under which Linux is distributed. It is also filing for loss of business for its AIX platform, due to SCO's very public marketing of its $3bn suit against IBM.

It is a particularly well-timed move for IBM. It follows sharply on the heels of Red Hat, which filed a formal complaint earlier this week, seeking to make SCO accountable for the damage it was causing Linux with its disparaging claims.

Additionally, the suit comes when the entire Linux community is holed-up in San Francisco for the Linux World conference. The assuredness of these moves from IBM and Red Hat may give Linux users the confidence not to sign up to SCO's steep Linux licence before its claims are substantiated or otherwise in court.

SCO responded to the IBM suit in a statement and described the suit as 'an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model.' It says it 'repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing.'

SCO maintains it intends to pursue the enforcement of its IP rights and claims the GPL is not appropriate for a commercial platform for business as it doesn't indemnify customers of products bought under GPL against the type of action SCO is pursuing.

It also questions the tardiness of IBM's suit: 'SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.'

However, some might say the same finger could raised against SCO for its original suit.