Judge Slams SCO's Lack of Evidence

An anonymous reader writes "News.com has reported that the federal judge overseeing the SCO Group's suit against IBM has voiced loud skepticism about SCO's case. "Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the Unix software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities," said U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball." Commentary available on Groklaw as well.

Comments

How will SCO spin this?

[veldstra]

One can only wonder what kind of good news SCO can/will make out of this... So far they've been very able to turn bad news into good news with lame excuses.

Re:Loser should pay

[Anonymous Coward]

If "the U.S. adopts a 'loser pays' court system similar to the UK" small parties can be bullied into submission even easier : [company to the suing private person] "I've got more money than you, and you will be paying my expenses too, so who do you think will win, and who will be left with a debth he will not be able to pay of for the rest of his life ?"

Actually, both systems have their ups and downs :-)

Re:This has been dragged out too long

[cybersaga]

You can sue for legal costs. My mother's accounting firm is doing so with the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency for dragging on a fraud investigation for years, when there was no fraud to begin with.

But apparantly, some judges are taking some action against frivolous lawsuits already.

Re:What's in this all for SCO?

[TrueJim]

I don't know why they're doing this, but I've tended to agree with others and wonder if:

(a) SCO started this because they thought they could get IBM to buy them, making all of the SCO executives rich, but then

(b) when IBM clearly signalled it wasn't going to fall for that old trick, SCO had to keep making a strong public appearance of a credible case in order to avoid getting sued -- or worse, SCO executives jailed by the SEC for some form of stock fraud. I.e., if they lose to IBM in a fair trial the executives can claim they honestly thought they had a case. If they simply give up and admit they never had a case, then what kind of legal attacks from shareholders or the SEC might they they open themselves up to? At this point, mayby Darl is just trying to avoid personal liability and an assault on his own personal assets.

Re:it is about time

[plover]

I have been wondering why Kimball hasn't granted summary judgement against SCO months ago. I think your comments give a good insight as to why he hasn't. If SCO is given every chance to present evidence and fails, there's not an appellate court in the federal system that would touch this one. He's giving them all the rope they need to hang themselves good and dead, and they're taking every inch.

By allowing this case to proceed to a final conclusion he's making sure it will be SCO's final resting place; the coffin will be nailed, screwed, glued and welded shut. IBM's countersuit for expenses will be swift and merciless.