The Lindon, Utah-based Unix vendor filed its motion with the court in February attempting to up its claim for damages from $3bn to $5bn and adding copyright infringement allegations. Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells has now granted the motion to amend SCO’s suit after IBM decided not to oppose it.

The amended complaint now lists nine causes for action against IBM: two counts of breach of software agreements; two counts of breach of sublicensing agreement; copyright infringement; unfair competition; two counts of interference with contract; and interference with business relationship.

The dropping of the trade secret misappropriation claim is significant because it relates to SCO’s previous claims that IBM took code from SCO’s OpenServer and UnixWare operating systems and transferred it to the Linux operating system. While SCO’s amended complaint still mentions trade secrets as part of its claim of unfair competition, it is no longer one of the company’s core complaints.

Instead, SCO is focusing on IBM’s transfer of Unix code from its AIX version of Unix, as well as the Dynix version it acquired with Sequent Computer Systems Inc in 1999, into Linux. SCO maintains that as part of the original AT&T licenses it now owns, it retains copyright over derivatives of the Unix System V code including AIX and Dynix. Hence its claims that IBM has breached two software agreements and two sublicensing agreements. For each complaint SCO is claiming $1bn in damages.

SCO is also seeking an additional $1bn in damages for copyright infringement based on the fact that IBM has continued to make AIX and Dynix available after SCO terminated IBM’s license to distribute AIX in June 2003 and did the same for Dynix in August 2003.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell Inc has maintained that it retains the right to prevent SCO from terminating IBM’s Unix System V licenses and SCO’s complaint also states that IBM has induced Novell to make its statements. For this the company is asking for additional punitive damages for interference with contract.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire