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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A federal judge has rejected SCO Group's attempt to amend its $5 billion lawsuit against IBM for the third time, and has scheduled it to go to trial on Feb. 26, 2007.
U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball wrote that allowing another revision of the suit, which was filed March 25, 2003, would "expand this already sizable and complex litigation and would serve only to delay its resolution."
Kimball gave attorneys a final deadline of Dec. 22 of this year to "identify with specificity" all allegedly misused intellectual property.
SCO claims its proprietary Unix code was allowed by IBM to be illegally incorporated into the freely-distributed Linux operating system.
Kimball also ruled that IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano must submit to a four-hour deposition in New York at a date yet to be set.
Kimball's decision, filed late Friday as the holiday weekend began, caught SCO unprepared. Spokesman Blake Stowell said Tuesday that company lawyers were studying the ruling. Whether SCO will appeal was undetermined.
"We look forward to having our claims heard before a jury," Stowell said.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
