SCO loses court case key to Linux future

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday ruled that software company SCO Group did not have copyrights that are key to its claims on the cooperatively developed Linux computer operating system.

Judge Dale Kimball of the U.S. District Court for Utah said Novell Inc, rather than SCO, owns copyrights to the UNIX computer operating system, which also jeopardizes a related SCO lawsuit against IBM.

"The court's ruling has cut out the core of SCO's case and, as a result, eliminates SCO's threat to the Linux community based upon allegations of copyright infringement of UNIX," Novell said in a statement. "We are extremely pleased with the outcome."

The judge also said Novell "is entitled, at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive" its claim against International Business Machines Corp.

SCO sued IBM in March 2003, alleging IBM had violated UNIX licensing agreements. Novell then said it had not transferred UNIX copyrights to SCO in a 1996 asset sale.

SCO was not immediately available for comment.