IBM Asks Court to Toss SCO's Entire Case

Lost+Found writes "After three and a half years of case proceedings, summary judgement motions have been submitted in the highly controversial SCO v. IBM case. SCOX shares took a loss of 18.75%, or $0.39, to close at $1.69. IBM shares rose 0.97%, a gain of $0.79, to close at $82.00. From the article: 'Both sides in SCO v. IBM have filed motions for summary judgment. To be precise, SCO has filed one for partial summary judgment and IBM has filed several motions for summary judgment, one for each of SCO's claims and two more for good measure on two of IBM's counterclaims. In other words, it is asking the court to throw out SCO's entire case, and to grant it judgment on two counterclaims without even going to trial on those two.' More motions for summary judgement from SCO against IBM counterclaims are currently being uncovered at Groklaw."

The meter continues to run ....

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be very interesting to find out what the end bill is for both IBM and SCO for this monumental waste of time (unless you're a lawyer of course, then this has been one of the best account padders of all time). How much is SCO worth these days anyway, even if IBM were awarded the entire company, I assume it wouldn't come close to negating the cost?

Summary Judgement

[blantonl]

What IBM should really do is formally offer SCO a settlement of One US Dollar. It would be One US Dollar more than SCO could ever hope to win with their baseless and time consuming lawsuit.

They could do it by scheduling a news conference, and taking that One US Dollar and placing it into a pretty frame, and the SCO attorneys would drool all over it and believe that they actually won something.

Jeeze.. just stick a fork in them - they are done.

The perfect Iceing

[budgenator]

FTA

What does that mean? That if IBM were to prevail on all its motions (of course that is a rare event indeed) then the only thing left to bring to a jury would be IBM's counterclaims. That has to be SCO's worst nightmare. That would mean the only questions for the jury to decide, if they found for IBM on the rest of IBM's counterclaims, would be how bad was SCO and how much do they owe IBM?

Wouldn't that be the perfect iceing on SCO's cake!

Legal Extortion

[Yahma]

One can only hope that this case will prevent "Legal Extorion" from occuring in the future; but alas, that is just wishful thinking... IBM is a big rich company. If SCO were to come after a small fish like you or I, would we have the money to defend ourselves the way IBM did? I seriously doubt it. More than likely, had SCO sued me directly, I would have run out of financial resources trying to defend myself, and would have capitulated. SCO probably would have gotten summary judgement against me and precedents in case law would have been set. The sad thing is, had SCO has smarter lawyers, they wouldn't have tried to take on a big fish like IBM, but would have sued a very small company with few finanical resources to defend themselves. Once a precedent has been set, they could have laughed all the way to the bank. Believe it or not, the legal system is full of cases which many would consider "Legal Extortion" (ie. Pay up now, or face an expensive and lenghty lawsuit). One industry I can think of where many hungry lawyers prey upon is the California Real Estate market. Which brings me back to a headline I once saw on a magazine for lawyers in California. The headline read: "Mold is GOLD!", meaning that the common practice of bringing in an environmentalist to find 'mold' in a home and then turning around and suing the former homeowner for not disclosing the potentially hazardous condition that is causing the new occupants all sorts of numerous ailments, is worth big bucks to many california lawyers.

Here's hoping that this case will help the little guy... but I'm not gonna hold by breath!

Yahma
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How far can IBM go?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

OK let us say IBM eventually wins and SCO loses. At that point SCO is bankrupt and IBM cant hope to get back any of the court costs it spent defending itself. At that point, can IBM go after the original investors in SCO who gave it the money to start and carry on the bloody fight? What should IBM do to go after them? Prove that they intentionally funded SCO for the express purpose of bleeding IBM and hurting? Or what else it has to prove?

Or can it pull an SCO trick itself? I mean just claim that the original investors were just legal extortionists and file a case against them and bleed them and give them a taste of their own medecine?

Reform

[w0lver]

Until there are general limitations on IP and patent litigation, this type of lawsuit will continue. It's the legal equivalent to chicken, which company runs out of money or guts first. The case will remain in some fashion until there are no more avenues to attack. With out some changes in the system, or best case a "loser pays" system, we will see this case and many others like it in the system for years. My prediction is that this case will drag on long into 2008, wasting million of shareholders dollars on both sides for very little gain.

Re:The meter continues to run ....

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM hired not just any top-shelf law firm, but one known by other law firms as "The Nazgul." They have such a fearsome reputation that they inspire dread in the hearts of opposing counsel - lol!

BTW: Novell's outside law firm also has quite a reputation and shortens their name for their internet domain and email addresses to "MoFo."

Re:Summary Judgement - like Ford

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the day, 1910ish, Ford fought a claim by Selden around the steel body frame for automobiles. They indemnified all of their customers against the patent, and fought it to the end allowing for the success of the Model T, and freedom of other entering in the industry. Of course, I fear driving Ford's now, but like the Ford case, IBM needs to demonstrate that they will fight to the end to allow long term confidence in the technology.

IIRC, Boies argued against Microsoft ....

[Anonymous Coward]

in the antitrust case. Even the feds hire outside counsel from time to time.

Re:Summary Judgement

[Stormwatch]

Maybe I'm being a romantic here, but could it be that someone at IBM made the decision with this in mind: "it'd be easier and cheaper to buy them out, but doing so would reward cheating scumbags"?

Re:The meter continues to run ....

[arivanov]

Er... I think you are mistaken by transplanting concepts of good/evil from your view of the world onto the legal world. Boies argued for DOJ and the states in the Micorosoft case and for SCO in the IBM case.

Just goes to prove that there is no such thing as good/evil/right/wrong as far litigation is concerned. It is only successfull vs unsuccessful.

Frankly, when SCO hired him my first thoughts were "they want their stock to go up". While his early courtroom showings (old case of IBM vs govt, etc) were good he has not won a significant case for a long time. At the same time every single one of his cases has generated a significant "positive" publicity for his client before losing. DOJ practically lost DOJ vs MSFT, Gore election case was also lost, etc. He may still win something for them, but the amount of stock rise and initial buzz around his participation in the case is clearly disproportional to his actual achievement.

Well, that's the real trick

[Weaselmancer]

I'm guessing no one at SCO is going to volunteer for federal ass-pounding prison if there's a way to drag some MSFT execs into the case with them.

I agree with your whole post 100%, but this is the tricky part.

Let's say all goes as IBM has planned and SCO gets their collective asses handed to them in court. And the SEC goes after them for insider trading once the whole case is settled and made public.

What next?

Exactly how do you draw a line between MS and the greybar hotel? Yeah, MS did finance the whole thing pretty much through Baystar. But investment isn't illegal.

I think you'd pretty much have to prove somehow that MS was giving them the money with the foreknowledge that they would use it to break the law. That would be seriously difficult to prove. And even then, it would be a corporation that was guilty - not individuals. The whole thing would work out to a fine at the worst, and MS is pretty famous for simply paying those off. The price of the ticket isn't a deterrant to these people.

IANAL, but that's how it seems to me.

Re:The meter continues to run ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much true that in-house counsel are not going to be litigating directly, if only because they are typically not admitted in the local court where the litigation is actually taking place. But, the main reason is that few in-house counsel are themselves trained as litigators -- The norm is that they come from corporate law backgrounds in their prior careers. Law is becoming a realm of specialists just as in medicine, and transactional types and litigation types are almost two different careers now.

(And, there are many exceptions to all of the above, but I think on the whole it's true.)

(And, yes, IAAL.)

So . . . been working for SCO long?

[mmell]

"Chilling effect on future baseless lawsuits". Uh, Earth to archeopterix, just what effect do you anticipate if SCO is permitted to proceed with their assertion that they own all *NIX OS's?

SCO was hoping that the "Big Boys" (IBM, Microsoft, HP, SUN) would knuckle under in return for a sweetheart deal (the previously mentioned "One Dollar", or some similarly trivial figure for the "Big Boys" to pony up). Hellfire, I'm sure SCO would've settled for no remuneration from the "Big Boys", if they could only have gotten their hands on a legal judgement that they really do own all the *NIX code on Earth.

IBM doesn't want to crush SCO, they just don't want to be crushed by a mosquito with delusions of grandeur.

Re:Summary Judgement

[crawling_chaos]

My point was that anyone suing IBM will get this treatment. It isn't just the poorly thought out suits that get stomped on by IBM's army of lawyers: all of them do. The US Government failed to truly get them for anti-trust back in the day, if you recall.

In other words, just because the muscle we are seeing is being used for a good cause this time doesn't mean that we should be complacent about how it might be used in the future. Just because your beliefs about software licensing happen to coincide with IBM's in this instance does not mean that that harmony will endure.

Re:The meter continues to run ....

[Doctor Memory]

You can start adding up the billable hours

Hours is often the least of it. Photocopying fees, phone calls, postage, faxes, data entry, filing (paper, not court), research -- these are the things that really tend to add up. A large law firm may bill their senior associates in 10-minute increments, but a single ten-minute phone call can cascade into dozens of documents, occupying paralegals and secretaries for hours. So that one phone call may have cost you ten minutes of $1000/hour lawyer time, but the ancilliary costs will run far, far more.