IBM attacks SCO's copyright claims

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 21 May 2004 at 12:15

IBM has filed a motion seeking a summary judgement in its favour against SCO's claims of copyright infringement because it has yet to provide any evidence of this.

SCO added copyright claims and another $2bn to its mammoth $3bn suit against IBM in February after dropping one of its main thrusts in its original suit - that IBM had misappropriated its trade secrets. At that point SCO amended its case with the claim that IBM had infringed its copyrights, after revoking its Unix licence in July last year.

The IBM filing reads: 'After more than a year of litigation, two orders to compel and two affidavits from SCO certifying that it has provided complete responses to IBM's interrogatories, SCO admits - by its silence and failure to provide evidence - that IBM's Linux activities do not infringe SCO's alleged copyrights.'

Indeed Greg Aharonian, who runs Patnews and the www.patenting-art.com site thinks that copyrights in software are a non-starter in the first place. 'Software copyright is so illogical that it affords little to no protection for software, if you understand the law... Software is too much functionality, utility, processes, methods [and] ideas, all governing aspects of software explicitly denied copyright protection.'

In April, IBM filed a similar motion arguing that SCO's claims of patent infringement be tried as part of the main case - in opposition to SCO's requests - because it believed SCO's case will have little substance to it before it ever comes to trial. 'We believe that most (if not all) of the claims and issues in the suit can and should be resolved by summary judgement, without the necessity of trial,' it said.

In other news, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has said it may deny certain information requested in the subpoena sent by SCO. The FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn said: 'We are certain that we will not produce all the material requested; we will not betray our legally protected confidences, particularly when they relate to our work upholding the integrity of the GPL.'

The subpoena asks for documents regarding the GPL and enforcement of it, information relating to Linux Torvalds, IBM and other 'players' and contributors in the Free Software community.

See also:

SCO's subpoena to FSF

Greg Aharonian's paper Deconstructing Software Copyright.