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Martin Pfeffer's Declaration - as text
Tuesday, September 14 2004 @ 10:02 PM EDT

Here's Martin Pfeffer's declaration as text. Pfeffer says that anything that was a modification of, or a derived work based on, System V was to be treated like System V and held as confidential. But that is not in dispute.

He says that any modifications based on System V remained controlled by AT&T. No dispute there either.

He never addresses the issue of code which was not based on System V, was independently written, and then later came in contact with Unix System V, or even had some small amount of System V code, but that of itself would not reveal protected System V "methods and concepts" when released by itself (separately from System V.) But that is the question, and since he never contradicts IBM's witnesses on that crucial point, I can't see his usefulness to SCO there.

Paragraph 12 seems irrelevant. It's trying to say that while IBM was covered by the signed Side Letter, Sequent was not, because they had no such signed letter. However, Novell has waived any breach on Sequent's part. And further, IBM has 7 witness who have all testified that the Side Letter was a mere clarification of Section 2.01, not a change to the original terms. So Sequent was already covered as regards that clause. Additionally, SCO revealed the code to the world in their UnitedLinux distribution, not to mention their offering the code on their website even up to and including at least August 4, according to IBM, and up to today, according to one Groklaw reader who says it is still being made available.

So, with regards to secrets, what did AT&T keep a secret? They spread UNIX all over the world, in schools and universities. Caldera released 32V freely to the public under a BSD-like license. Caldera/SCO distributed the very code they are complaining about stark naked, so to speak, under the GPL. The contract protects only methods and concepts kept secret by AT&T. So it seems a tempest in a teapot to talk about protecting methods that were and are known to every comp sci student in the world and that the entire inhabited earth could download for free as source from SCO's own website. Does SCO get to control all the students' ideas and work product forever more, because they once read a book about Unix or downloaded United Linux?

Section 7.06(a) includes this last sentence: "If information relating to a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this Agreement at any time becomes available without restriction to the general public by acts not attributable to LICENSEE or its employees, LICENSEE'S obligations under this section shall not apply to such information after such time." You can't "misappropriate" something that is publicly known. No doubt that is why SCO dropped its trade secret claims against IBM. They are relying on contract, but the contract itself says that once the horse is out of the barn, it's out of the barn.

Read dispassionately, then, Pfeffer does little to clarify the license. He mostly reiterates the wording without explaining what certain crucial words mean -- "derived" for one. He's really saying "The license means what it says it means, and this was to afford maximum protection to AT&T's trade secrets." You can contrast the declaration with how SCO characterizes it in their memorandum. Our thanks, once again, to Steve Martin for the transcript, the HTML and the proofreading.

**********************

Brent O. Hatch (5715)
Mark F. James (5295)
HATCH, JAMES & DODGE
[address]
[phone]
[fax]

Robert Silver (admitted pro hac vice)
BOIES, SCHILLER & FLEXNER LLP
[address]
[phone]
[fax]

Stephen N. Zack (admitted pro hac vice)
Mark J. Heise (admitted pro hac vice)
BOIES, SCHILLER & FLEXNER LLP
[address]
[phone]
[fax]

Attorneys for Plaintiff

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH, CENTRAL DIVISION

THE SCO GROUP, INC.,

Plaintiff,


v.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
MACHINES CORPORATION,

Defendant.

Case No. 2:03CV0294DAK

Hon. Dale A. Kimball

Magistrate Judge Brooke C. Wells


DECLARATION OF
MARTIN PFEFFER


I, Martin Pfeffer, declare as follows:

1. I submit this Declaration in connection with The SCO Group v. International Business Machines Corporation, No. 2:03CV0294DAK (D. Utah 2003).

I. EDUCATION AND WORK HISTORY

2. I received a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from City College of the City University of New York in 1957 and an L.L.B. degree from New York University in 1961. I was admitted to practice law in New York in 1962. My specialty is intellectual property law, and I am registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

3. I was employed as an attorney in the legal department of AT&T or one of its subsidiary companies (including Western Electric) from 1962 until 1993. I worked in company offices located in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. During my tenure, I held several positions in which I was responsible for drafting, and supervising the drafting of, patent applications and contracts to protect the company's intellectual property and other proprietary rights as well as for handling, and supervising the handling of, other efforts to enforce those rights.

4. In the 1980's, I was General Attorney for AT&T and provided legal consulting for AT&T's UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. ("USL"). Together with Burt Levine (another attorney employed in AT&T's legal department), I participated in, supervised, and approved the legal department's drafting of the terms of the written license agreements (and any modifications thereto), whereby AT&T and USL licensed UNIX computer operating system source code and related proprietary materials. I had the primary responsibility for such matters.

II. LICENSING OF UNIX

5. AT&T and USL used their license agreements to protect their intellectual property and other proprietary rights in UNIX. In 1985, during my tenure as General Attorney for AT&T, AT&T entered into written license and sublicense agreements with, among others, IBM and Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. ("Sequent") relating to the UNIX System V version of UNIX. Although not every single such license agreement was identical, they generally contained substantially similar terms and reflected the same intent, especially insofar as those agreements concerned protections for the licensor's intellectual property and other proprietary rights in UNIX.

6. Section 2.01 of AT&T's standard license agreement stated:

"AT&T grants to LICENSEE a personal, nontransferable and nonexclusive right to use in the United States each SOFTWARE PRODUCT identified in the one or more Supplements hereto, solely for LICENSEE'S own internal business purposes and solely on or in conjunction with DESIGNATED CPUs for such SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and to prepare derivative works based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT, provided the resulting materials are treated hereunder as part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT."

Based on my personal knowledge and professional experience at AT&T and USL (including my extensive involvement in reading, drafting, approving, and enforcing such license agreements as well as my communications with AT&T and USL employees and licensees), I know that this language set forth the parties' intent and agreement that the "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" licensed and protected under the terms of the license agreements included the full content of all of the "resulting materials" created over time from the licensees' exercise of their contractual "right to modify" and "to prepare derivative works" based on the original licensed material, including the UNIX source code and all of the proprietary information reflected or embodied therein. Accordingly, under Section 2.01, if a licensee created a modification or derivative work based on the original licensed product, then the agreement treated the "resulting" work as if it had been part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT, and any further modifications or derivatives of that "resulting" work would be treated in the same manner.

7. In 1985, AT&T added language to its software license agreements to address inquiries from certain of its licensees concerning the ownership of modifications and derivative works. Later that year, the following language was added to AT&T's standard license agreement: "AT&T-IS claims no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or derivative work that is not part of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT." Based on my personal knowledge and professional experience at AT&T and USL (including my extensive experience in this area as described above), I know that this language set forth the parties' intent and agreement concerning only the ownership of modifications or derivative works, and that this language was not intended to change, and did not in fact change, AT&T's right to control (for example, the use and disclosure) of such modifications and/or derivative works, as set forth in Section 2.01 and other provisions of the software license agreements. Indeed, during my tenure at AT&T and USL, I specifically discussed and agreed with certain licensees that AT&T and USL would not acquire ownership over material that a licensee independently created merely because the licensee included that material in a "SOFTWARE PRODUCT," but I do not recall any such instances in which AT&T or USL changed or agreed to change the contractual limitations on use and disclosure that were set forth in the UNIX license agreement.

8. AT&T license agreements contained a confidentiality provision that required the licensee to hold the "SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this Agreement in confidence for AT&T." Based on my personal knowledge and professional experience at AT&T and USL (including my extensive experience in this area is described above), I know that this language set forth the parties' intent and agreement that the "SOFTWARE PRODUCTS" covered by the license agreements (and, pursuant to Section 2.01, any modifications or derivative works "based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT") would be subject to the restrictions set forth in AT&T's confidentiality provision, regardless of the licensee's ownership interest in any part of such "SOFTWARE PRODUCTS."

9. The confidentiality provision of AT&T's standard license agreement further provided that the licensee "shall not make any disclosure of any or all of such SOFTWARE PRODUCTS (including methods or concepts utilized therein) to anyone, except to employees of LICENSEE to whom such disclosure is necessary to the use for which rights are granted hereunder." Based on my personal knowledge and professional experience at AT&T and USL (including my extensive experience in this area as described above), I know that this language was specifically designed to cast the widest possible net in order to ensure protection for AT&T's proprietary information, beyond the common law protections that would otherwise have been available (absent the agreement) for AT&T's trade secrets and "know-how."

10. Accordingly, as explained above, it was AT&T's intent to prevent through its UNIX license agreements the unauthorized use and disclosure of more than just literally copied UNIX source code. AT&T intended to protect, and through its standard license agreements expressly protected, its UNIX business by preventing anyone from using AT&T's proprietary material in UNIX including by literally or non-literally copying UNIX source code, disclosing methods or concepts from UNIX, and/or exploiting licensees' access to the technology in UNIX) without paying UNIX license fees to AT&T. AT&T effected this protection through its license agreements by, among other things, requiring licensees to treat all materials resulting from any exercise of their "right to modify" and "to prepare derivative works" as if such materials had been "part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT"; by specifically requiring licensees to hold AT&T's "SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this Agreement in confidence for AT&T"; and by strictly controlling the disclosure of "any or all of such SOFTWARE PRODUCTS (including methods or concepts utilized therein)."

11. I do not recall any instance during my tenure in which either AT&T or USL agreed (in any license agreement or supplement or modification thereof) to reduce its protection under a UNIX license to prevent the unauthorized use or disclosure of only source code. Any such change would have been a significant and material change to the standard terms of AT&T's license agreement and, in 1985, clearly would have required my, or to a lesser extent Burt Levine's, approval. I do not recall any such proposed or actual modification to the standard license agreement.

12. AT&T's license agreement contained a clause stating that:

"This Agreement and its Supplements set forth the entire agreement and understanding between the parties as to the subject matter hereof and merge all prior discussions between them, and neither of the parties shall be bound by any conditions, definitions, warranties, understandings or representations with respect to such subject matter other than as expressly provided herein or as duly set forth on or subsequent to the date of acceptance hereof in writing and signed by a proper and duly authorized representative of the party to be bound hereby. No provision appearing on any form originated by LICENSEE shall be applicable unless such provision is expressly accepted in writing by an authorized representative of AT&T."

Based on my personal knowledge and professional experience at AT&T and USL (including my extensive experience in this area as described above), I know that this language set forth the parties' intent and agreement that only the terms of each licensee's written agreements with AT&T would govern those parties' contractual obligations. In other words, any agreements (including any side letter agreements) that AT&T entered into with one of its UNIX licensees would have no legal effect on the contractual obligations of AT&T vis-à-vis any of its other UNIX licensees.

13. I have previously executed another Declaration in this same matter, which I provided only to counsel for IBM.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed: Sept. 7, 2004
New York, New York

(signature)
Martin Pfeffer

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I HEREBY CERTIFY that I caused a true and correct copy of the foregoing DECLARATION OF MARTIN PFEFFER to be hand-delivered this 8 day of September, 2004, to the following:

Alan L. Sullivan, Esq.
Todd M. Shaughnessy, Esq.
Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P.
[address]

Mailed by U.S. Mail, first class postage prepaid, to the following:

Evan R. Chesler, Esq.
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
[address]

Donald J. Rosenberg, Esq.
[address]

(signature)


  


Martin Pfeffer's Declaration - as text | 58 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Martin Pfeffer's Declaration - as text
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:07 AM EDT
Martin was paid to say nothing and he has said it well..

[ Reply to This | # ]

Martin Pfeffer's Declaration -- Corrections here, please
Authored by: rand on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:07 AM EDT


---
Eat a toad for breakfast -- it makes the rest of the day seem so much easier
(Chinese (I'm told) proverb) (IANAL and so forth and so on)

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT Comments and Links Go Here
Authored by: NastyGuns on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:32 AM EDT
Please.

---
NastyGuns,
"If I'm not here, I've gone out to find myself. If I return before I get back, please keep me here." Unknown.

[ Reply to This | # ]

So, with regards to secrets, what did AT&T keep a secret? ANSWER: NOTHING
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:41 AM EDT
In order to prevail on a claim that you kept something secret and somebody else
improperly disclosed it -- you have to demonstrate that you kept it secret.

AT&T were unable to demonstrate this in 1992, see the BSD Amicus brief on
sco.tuxrocks.com

Among other things:
1. They did not have a complete list of their licensees
2. They did not have complete records of on what terms they issues licenses

AT&T hence could not prevail on a trade secret claim in the BSD case,
because they could not demonstrate anything of theirs was in fact kept secret.

SCO, firstly has this problem - and the problem *at best* for them) has stayed
the same since 1992 - or more realistically probably got worse.

Furthermore, SCO has an additional problem:

In a trade secret type case, the plaintiff is first required to identify the
trade secrets at issue. When SCO were ordered (December 12th order) to identify
any secret or confidential information taken by IBM, they were apparently unable
to do so....

Quatermass
IANAL IMHO etc

[ Reply to This | # ]

Does IBM Get to Clarify ?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:50 AM EDT
Given the vagueness of this deposition, does IBM get another bit at the cherry
(so to speak). Do they get to go back and ask clarifying questions ?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Martin Pfeffer's Declaration - as text
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:57 AM EDT
They [AT&T] released 32V freely to the public under a BDS-like license.
This isn't actually the case. AT&T didn't release 32V under a BSD-like license, or there never would have been a BSDi vs AT&T lawsuit. Since BSD is derived from 32V, AT&T wouldn't have been able to assert copyright of the source and sue for improper copying had such a license been in place then. BSD 4.x required a proper AT&T license before Berkeley would give it to you. The whole point of 4.4-lite was to remove the 32V encumbered files from BSD and to thus settle the lawsuit. Caldera freed 32V under a BSD-like license, but that was very much after the fact.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: IBM reply on motion to strike
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:57 AM EDT
IBM has 2 motions to strike in play

1. Motion to strike related to Sontag declaration associated with SCO's
"renewed" motion to compel. This is fully briefed, all docs are on
tuxrocks.



2. Motion to strike related to Sontag, Gupta, and Harrop and other materials
submitted by SCO in opposition to IBM's PSJ motion on CC10. For this we have
IBM's initial memo, SCO's reply, but haven't seen IBM's reply to SCO's reply.

SCO submitted their reply on 7 September (although it wasn't filed immediately
because it was overlength, and they required an ex parte moption to file)

IBM probably have replied to this.... as is of course relevant to the September
15 hearing.


Quatermass
IANAL IMHO etc

[ Reply to This | # ]

Error
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 03:43 AM EDT
Sorry PJ, I love the work that you do but you mention a "BDS-license"
should that not read "BSD-license'

Other than that, it's perfect.

Later

Leonpmu

[ Reply to This | # ]

My concern
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 04:40 AM EDT
I hope we are not becoming overconfident. To get to a jury, SCOG only has to
raise slight doubts over the facts of the case. If the judge feels that this
disposition raises any doubt over the the intent of the contract, he will have
to deny PSJ. Similarly, if (as someone non technical) he is not totally
convinced that SCOG has failed to show any code it may own in Linux, the judge
may feel he must deny PSJ. This is not a situation where the vast preponderance
of the evidence is sufficient. Good job though the IBM team has done, I am not
convinced they will avoid a jury trial.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Perhaps the most important point
Authored by: elderlycynic on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 04:57 AM EDT
PJ says:

Read dispassionately, then, Pfeffer does little to clarify the
license. He mostly reiterates the wording without explaining what
certain crucial words mean -- "derived" for one. He's really
saying "The license means what it says it means, and this was to
afford maximum protection to AT&T's trade secrets." ...

Yes, precisely. That is what I and others were told when
negotiating with A,T&T, which we believed was void, but where
we could not shift A,T&T an inch. The sites that signed the
contract and ignored it were tacitly given retrospective
permission by A,T&T, but many did not do that.

Perhaps the most important thing that could come out of this
case is a decision that such "tainting" clauses are void in
law. I have seen similar clauses (though not as bad) in other
contracts, including Microsoft ones. Well, one of the
Microsoft clauses as nearly as bad, actually. They are one of
the worst threats to independent software developers, open
source and other.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Applicability of anti-trust law
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 07:11 AM EDT

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it really was the AT&T's intent to effect protection through its license agreements by, among other things:

... requiring licensees to treat all materials resulting from any exercise of their "right to modify" and "to prepare derivative works" as if such materials had been "part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT"; by specifically requiring licensees to hold AT&T's "SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this Agreement in confidence for AT&T"; and by strictly controlling the disclosure of "any or all of such SOFTWARE PRODUCTS (including methods or concepts utilized therein)."

Wouldn't this intent have run afoul of the monopoly laws in effect at the time of the agreement, perhaps specifically the AT&T Consent Decree (I assume that it was in effect at the time this agreement was signed, although I may be wrong)?

If so, why wouldn't at least that part of the agreement that would have supposedly effected the protection claimed in the declaration have been illegal and thus void under antitrust law? And if it were void at that time, why wouldn't it still be void now, irrespective of any transfer of ownership of the rights to the underlying copyright?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Martin Pfeffer's Declaration - as text
Authored by: blacklight on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 07:41 AM EDT
"Accordingly, under Section 2.01, if [my bolding] a licensee created a modification or derivative work based on the original licensed product, then the agreement treated the "resulting" work as if it had been part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT, and any further modifications or derivatives of that "resulting" work would be treated in the same manner."

Note the use of the word "if".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Martin Pfeffer's Declaration - as text
Authored by: blacklight on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 07:52 AM EDT
"10. Accordingly, as explained above, it was AT&T's intent to prevent
through its UNIX license agreements the unauthorized use and disclosure of more
than just literally copied UNIX source code. AT&T intended to protect, and
through its standard license agreements expressly protected, its UNIX business
by preventing anyone from using AT&T's proprietary material in UNIX
including by literally or non-literally copying UNIX source code, disclosing
methods or concepts from UNIX, and/or exploiting licensees' access to the
technology in UNIX) without paying UNIX license fees to AT&T."

Let's put this in context: the fact is that the AT&T codebase contains a
fair amount of code that was placed in the public domain and code of BSD origin
- AT&T's wide net could not legally encompass any such code. In addition,
AT&T disclosed a fair amount of code methodology to the public. Finally,
AT&T was compelled to introduce amendments such as Amendment X to its
contracts to reassure its UNIX licensees that the terms of the AT&T
contracts were not lopsided in AT&T's favor. Pfeiffer's declaration contains
none of these qualifiers for whatever reason.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Does Mr. Pfeffer (accidentally) Make IBM's Point?
Authored by: wcff on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 07:54 AM EDT
In paragraph 7 of the declaration, Mr. Pfeffer says,

7. In 1985, AT&T added language to its software license agreements to address inquiries from certain of its licensees concerning the ownership of modifications and derivative works. Later that year, the following language was added to AT&T's standard license agreement: "AT&T-IS claims no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or derivative work that is not part of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT." Based on my personal knowledge and professional experience at AT&T and USL (including my extensive experience in this area as described above), I know that this language set forth the parties' intent and agreement concerning only the ownership of modifications or derivative works, and that this language was not intended to change, and did not in fact change, AT&T's right to control (for example, the use and disclosure) of such modifications and/or derivative works, as set forth in Section 2.01 and other provisions of the software license agreements. Indeed, during my tenure at AT&T and USL, I specifically discussed and agreed with certain licensees that AT&T and USL would not acquire ownership over material that a licensee independently created merely because the licensee included that material in a "SOFTWARE PRODUCT," but I do not recall any such instances in which AT&T or USL changed or agreed to change the contractual limitations on use and disclosure that were set forth in the UNIX license agreement.

It seems, though, that his quotation of the added language is incomplete. Also added (as found in IBM's Motion for partial summary judgment on Breach of Contract Claims, page 35, paragraph 119), the actual rewording of section 2.01 is as follows.

"AT&T-IS grants to LICENSEE a personal, nontransferable and nonexclusive right to use in the United States each SOFTWARE PRODUCT identified in the one or more Supplements hereto, solely for LICENSEE's own internal business purposes and solely on or in conjunction with DESIGNATED CPUs for such SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and to prepare derivate works based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT, provided that any such modification or deriviative work that contains any part of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this Agreement is treated hereunder the same as such SOFTWARE PRODUCT. AT&T-IS claims no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or derivative work that is not part of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT." (emphasis added)

Added to section 2.01, in addition to the sentence Mr. Pfeffer quotes, is a clarification of exactly what "derivatives" are covered: only those that "contain[s] any part of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this agreement ...."

So, accepting Mr. Pfeffer's assertion that the newly-written section 2.01 "... was not intended to change, and did not in fact change, AT&T's right to control ...", and the fact that the new section 2.01 clearly defines the controlled derivatives as those that contain code from the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, it seems to me that Mr. Pfeffer has made IBM's point: homegrown code is not, and never was, controlled.

Do I reason incorrectly?

---
wcff (will code for fun)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sequent non-side letter non-issue
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 09:25 AM EDT
Sequent didn't ask for a side letter, because AT&T had already
"clarified" those terms in its new contract. When Groklaw regulars
got a chance to read Sequent's licensing agreement, they felt vindicated in an
argument David Berlind had put up at ZDNet.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Don't give SCO any ideas, please.
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 11:55 AM EDT
Does SCO get to control all the students' ideas and work product forever more, because they once read a book about Unix or downloaded United Linux?

I think we just found SCO's next lawsuit.

-paul

[ Reply to This | # ]

Smoke and mirrors...
Authored by: Latesigner on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 12:58 PM EDT
SCO needed something they could wave around and spin to make it look like they
had a case.
I've no idea if this guy is straight or not, I do know that SCO found him
convenient ( and if I were him I'd wonder about that ).

[ Reply to This | # ]

13. Second Declaration?
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 01:52 PM EDT
"13. I have previously executed another Declaration in this same matter,
which I provided only to counsel for IBM."

What is this about?

Does it contradict this one?

Are we going to see it?

---
Rsteinmetz

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."

[ Reply to This | # ]

The wording sounds like McBride's sound bites
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 09:21 PM EDT
The old ATT contracts were designed to protect ATT's trade secrets. Since
ATT eschewed copyright, they boxed in their customers using contractual
restrictions in line with trade secret protection.

TSG has told the Magistrate that there are no longer trade secrets in SVRx.
So, those contractual strictures are no longer relevant.

Look to the USL vs BSDi case to see how one court ignored the claims
implicit in this disposition. UC Berkeley wrote a newer, better flavor of
UNIX after having agreed to some ATT license and contract.

Like an encyclopedia, IBM wrote several brand new sections usable in any
of these similar encyclopedias. IBM did not infringe on another's copyright;
IBM did what any good engineer does and built a completely new model.

There is a paradox underlying all of TSG's strategy. If one follows TSG's
illogic, then TSG owns all modern software even though they obviously
understand little about modern software.

This disposition is a slanted partial story; I would like to read what he gave
IBM to see a more complete presentation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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