Judge accepts expanded SCO lawsuit

A judge has accepted the SCO Group's changes to a lawsuit against IBM that now seeks $5 billion in damages for Big Blue's alleged moving of Unix intellectual property into Linux.

Because IBM didn't oppose SCO's motion to amend its claims--a motion that was "subject to IBM's right to move against the amended pleadings"--Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells accepted SCO's new legal attack, he said in a filing Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Utah.

The second amended complaint drops SCO's claim that IBM misappropriated trade secrets, but adds a charge of copyright infringement. SCO seeks $1 billion in damages for unfair competition and $1 billion for each of four allegations of breaching various contracts by which SCO licensed Unix to IBM and a company Big Blue acquired, Sequent.

When SCO's suit against IBM began, in March 2003, it sought more than $1 billion in damages. In April, an amendment to the suit raised the figure to $3 billion.

"The amount is starting to become breathtaking," said John Ferrell, an intellectual-property attorney at law firm Carr & Ferrell, referring to the damages SCO and its attorney, David Boies, are seeking.

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