On Thursday 15 May 2003 10:32, Jerry Feldman wrote:
On Thu, 15 May 2003 10:04:58 -0700
Tony Alfrey
wrote: My experiences with the legal system, especially as it pertains to civil suits, is that the side with overwhelming legal resources wins. It is hard for me to imagine that SCO has anywhere near the legal budget that IBM has. Unless SCO has a hidden source of support, I think that IBM will do the calculation of cost to chew up SCO in court versus the cost of buyout and make the decision on a cost-benefit basis. But IBM will make this decision, not SCO.
Then how did Lindows (http://www.lindows.com/) win over Microsoft? The bottom line is that the small guy needs a good case, or at least strong enough to make the big guy settle. Most lawsuits are settled out of court because the cost of pursuing it is high AND, the outcome is a risk. Certainly one strategy for the big player is as you have stated.
Ok, with Lindows it was the big guy that brought the tort against the little guy. Essentially what M$ wanted was it's interpretation of a name based on implications about a market position and name recognition do be stopped on the bases of some sort of rights to said name or derivitives therein. It was a nonsense argument blatently fashioned to hamper/quash a competitor - and was succinctly rejected by the courts on essentially that premise. In otherwords M$ has no trademake to anything other than "Microsoft Window" and not just "windows", otherwise someone would undoubtedly try to trademark the whole damn language. Can you see trade mark for "dumb", doorknob", "widget", etc, etc... So in the M$ vs Lindows case M$ had a lot to prove and couldn't. In the SCO vs IBM case this issues are less transparent. And, here the little guy is going after the big guy. Yes, the "my lawyers are bigger than your lawyers" aspect of corporate torts will most definately play a role IMHO. It always does. However, unlike the M$ vs Lindows - "you can't use that name" case, the SCO vs IBM - "You stool our code/patent" case is much more convoluted with a far greater amount of intricisies. The similarities are the same with regards to burden of proof. SCO brought on the allegations and has the burden. David Boies may be a hallmark attorney, but his track record hasn't been all that convincing - just ask Al Gore (no politiacal statement intended, merely an observation related to electoral disputes, representation, and outcomes of same). I said it at the onset of this fiasco. IBM can file motions, writs, requests for stays and injunctions, etc, etc.... until they're blue in the face (oops I made a bad joke there didn't I?) if it plays into the strategy that IBMs law team formulates. This is a common practice to suck the resources out of the competition. Now if it is deemed by the IBM legal team that the quicker the better, then one would suspect that they will move to gather any evidence to bolster their case and discredit SCO. Given that SCO is on shaky ground and has the burden of proof it's a case of prove it. And that ain't neccessarily easy. And this could be a little investment to shake SCO up in court and make them more plyable for a possible. Likewise, if things start to look shaky then IBM can pull a hostile takeover and bamm it's done. Just go to investors - offer a profit to the majority holders and no more SCO. Just MHO. Curtis.