Media Company Wants SCO-IBM Court Documents UnsealedMedia Company Wants SCO-IBM Court Documents Unsealed

The public nature and expansive scope of SCO Group's fight against Linux providers and users may be coming around to bite the company in the backside. G2 Computer Intelligence Inc., a small provider of high-tech newsletters, filed a motion Tuesday with the Utah district court that's hearing SCO Group's lawsuit against IBM, asking the court to unseal any protected documents related to the case.

Citing rights guaranteed to the public under the First Amendment to the Constitution, Federal Common Law, and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, G2 wants the 29 documents sealed as part of SCO's case made accessible to the public, "unless the parties demonstrate that the release of such documents would cause them specific competitive injury," the motion states. G2's argument is that the case is "the subject of intense public interest" because of Linux's status as the best-known open-source operating system.

It's fairly standard practice for participants in a civil case to get a judge to seal documents the way SCO Group and IBM have, says David Byer, a partner in the patent and intellectual-property practice at Boston law firm Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault LLP. What's less common is for a third party such as G2 to litigate to have the court's protective orders lifted.

SCO Group's $5 billion lawsuit against IBM and SCO's subsequent lawsuits against other IT vendors and Linux user AutoZone Inc.have brought a lot of attention to this case. "It's fair to say that a lot of people are watching this case, so it does have a public aspect to it that a purely civic matter doesn't," Byer says. "This public aspect gives [G2] the ability to go in with a straight face and say this is a matter of public interest."

There's not a lot of precedent for G2's actions in a civil case, so it's hard to say how successful the media company will be, Byer says. If G2 is successful, IBM and SCO will have to go back and make arguments for material they want to keep private. "This potentially becomes a large sideshow," he says. It's unlikely that any information disclosing trade secrets or affecting either company's stock price would be unsealed.

SCO Group's move to sue AutoZone and threats to sue additional users creates what could be a legitimate reason for the public to need to know details of this case, agrees Melise Blakeslee, partner with the Washington, D.C., law firm McDermott, Will & Emery. "The public should not be shut out of knowing information that could affect them or is of relevance," she says.

In fact, SCO's litigious threats have created a ripple effect in the business community that has made venture-capital firms reluctant to invest in companies that provide Linux-related products, Blakeslee says. Further evidence of the impact of SCO Group's case can be seen in programs initiated by Red Hat, Hewlett-Packard, and the Open Source Development Lab to defend Linux users and developers in the event of a lawsuit.

Either way the court decides, SCO's legal adventures are likely to have a profound effect on the IT industry for years to come. G2's request is another instance of the "SCO constellation spinning off new and interesting issues," Byer says.