IP-WARS.NET || A Simple Case

A Simple Case

By nedu, Section Diary
Posted on Mon May 2nd, 2005 at 13:54:55 EST

“Paul Murphy” leads his story with, “SCO's basic claim against IBM is simple.”

But The SCO Group's attorney, Kevin P. McBride, has already stated in court [PDF; p.7 at 8,-9] [text], “— this is a complex case, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Murphy“ asserts, “[T]his was a straightforward contractual dispute that could, and should, have been settled quickly and easily.”

But at that same December 2003 hearing, Mr. McBride went on to say:

Now, Your Honor, that becomes a very interesting question. Is that a contract interpretation that this Court will ultimately have to make? Is it a copyright issue? [p.13 at 16,-18]

[...]

Now, that leads us to a very interesting point. Do we have again -- and I'll only do this once more and I won't repeat it after that -- do we then have a contract case? Do we have trade secrets? Do we have confidential information which is neither a trade secret or a copyright? And if so, what proportion do those fall out or shake out in and how is the Court going to deal with that? [p.14 at 14,-20]

Mr. McBride is not only The SCO Group's attorney—he's the brother of their CEO! But “Mr. Murphy” confidently contradicts Mr. McBride.

Did someone lead with their chin?

< Access to SCO-IBM files is sought (11 comments) | The Outing of PJ (201 comments) >

A Simple Case | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial, 2 hidden)

simple stupidity. (4.25 / 8) (#4)
by ColonelZen (tzellers lieth within pobox of thy kingdom com) on Wed May 4th, 2005 at 14:34:42 EST
(User Info)

Paul Murphy/Rudy de Haas is an idiot, IMO.

For those of you not following my comments on SCOX on Y...

The "tests" for breach of contract he asserts are sheer nonsense because AIX 370 was announced in 1988. IOW AIX existed on the mainframe a decade before Monterey, ergo demonstration of a correlation between AIX and Linux 390 means nothing about Monterey.

I was there and part of the ongoing discussions in the early days of consideration of Linux on mainframe.

This is not the first time Murphy has demonstrated a considerable lack of real knowledge of the technical expertise he asserts.

-- TWZ

Re: simple stupidity. by Potential Recruit, 05/15/2005 19:55:34 EST (4.00 / 3)
Re: simple stupidity. by pgk, 05/04/2005 17:50:03 EST (3.71 / 7)

Re: simple stupidity. by ColonelZen, 05/05/2005 13:33:11 EST (4.00 / 7)

Murphy's timeline (4.00 / 8) (#2)
by nedu (nedu@netscape.net) on Mon May 2nd, 2005 at 22:37:47 EST
(User Info)

In his story, “Mr. Murphy” implies that Boies, Shiller & Flexner didn't get involved until after The SCO Group's initial filing [PDF] (signed copy; text) in Utah state court:

Unfortunately, somewhere after SCO's first Utah court filing -- and before IBM made its decision to continue selling AIX and other Unix products regardless of its license status -- the normal process got completely derailed.

[...]

Thus, one of the first new filings by the Boies firm that took over leadership on the claim upped the ante considerably.

But this theory suffers from the fatal defect that the complaint filed in the Third Judicial District of Salt Lake County, State of Utah, was signed by Mark F. James for Brent O. Hatch, Mark F. James (Hatch, James & Dodge, P.C.), and David Boies, Stephen N. Zack, Mark J. Heise (Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP), attorneys for plaintiff Caldera Systems, Inc. d/b/a The SCO Group.

The Boies firm was engaged on or about February 26th, 2003.

Dear Mr. McBride:

We are pleased to confirm your decision to engage the law firms to act as legal counsel for Caldera International, Inc., The SCO Group and SCO, Inc. (collectively referred to as the "Client" or "SCO") in connection with the further investigation and prosecution of SCO's UNIX-related intellectual property rights and trade secrets and the institution of settlement discussions and/or litigation against IBM, other source code licenses, and others as mutually agreed to in writing that may be exploiting or violating SCO's UNIX-related intellectual property rights and/or trade secrets (the "representation").

The filing in Utah state court occurred on or about March 6th, 2003.

Re: Murphy's timeline by nedu, 05/03/2005 12:46:00 EST (3.83 / 6)
Re: Murphy's timeline by nedu, 05/09/2005 01:11:04 EST (3.66 / 6)

Oops! Link credit (3.50 / 4) (#1)
by nedu (nedu@netscape.net) on Mon May 2nd, 2005 at 14:08:40 EST
(User Info)

Thanks, Br3n!

Which idiot do you believe? (3.25 / 4) (#8)
by codswallet on Sun May 15th, 2005 at 16:02:27 EST
(User Info)

Luckily we don't have to believe either. The SCO case is quite well set out in the responses to IBM's interrogatories. I wrote a fairly long piece on this issue, but it was so long ago, I can't remember where or even whether I posted it. I'll clean up the format a little and put it in my diary.

A Simple Case | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial, 2 hidden)

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