The Lindon, Utah-based Unix vendor filed a motion with the US District Court in Utah on Friday attempting to add copyright infringement claims against IBM and upping its request for damages to at least $5bn.

If approved, SCO’s amended complaint against IBM would also significantly change the nature of the case between the two companies.

Meanwhile, Armonk, New York-based IBM filed a report with the court on Friday stating that SCO has failed to comply with a court order to provide IBM with requested documents.

IBM also noted that in response to the court order SCO abandons any claim that IBM misappropriated its trade secrets, concedes that SCO has no evidence that IBM improperly disclosed Unix System V code, and acknowledges that SCO’s contract case is grounded solely on the proposition that IBM improperly disclosed portions of IBM’s own AIX or Dynix products, which SCO claims to be derivatives of Unix System V.

SCO originally launched its litigation against IBM in March 2003, accusing IBM of misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, interference with contract, and breach of contract.

The motion for a second amended complaint now lists nine causes for action: 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.

In its motion, SCO details some of the code it says has been passed into Linux and that it believes constitute derivative works of Unix System V. This includes 148 lines from nine files of the AIX Journaling File System, 285 lines from eight files of the AIX Enterprise Volume Management System, virtually the entire files of Dynix Remove Copy Update, as well as a further 82 lines from four files of Dynix.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire