IBM has filed a lawsuit before a court in New York against one of its partners: Micro Focus. The company has made this decision because, in its opinion, Micro Focus has violated its collaboration agreement, as well as IBM’s patents, in the sale of its “Micro Focus Web Services”. The lawsuit, according to initial information, focuses on a “web services binding file“, a copyrighted software format that IBM claims it uses to map data.
Specifically, from IBM They accuse the British company of copying the file structure and other functions of the WSBIND format, which would violate IBM’s intellectual property rights. This is based on several similarities to point out that, because of them, they have reached the conclusion that Micro Focus copied elements of IBM’s Works, which is copyrighted, to create a derivative work, at least in Micro Focus Enterprise and Micro Focus Enterprise Server. Because “there is no way such a broad resemblance could come about through attempts to cover similar functional requirements, or by chance«.
From the blue giant they point out that the British developer got its code through a partner program that allowed limited use of IBM’s intellectual property. After getting it, they used that code to create their own product offering to compete with IBM.
In the statement in which IBM announces the filing of this lawsuit, the company states that “IBM has long had successful programs focused on creating an ecosystem of developers who create applications for IBM mainframe systems, for the benefit of our mutual customers. IBM and its clients trust these software developers as trusted partners. Micro Focus has broken that trust, a discovery this lawsuit brings to light.«.
The demand requests an unspecified amount for economic damages, as well as a requirement that Micro Focus is prohibited from selling the software that IBM identifies as duplicates. According to the company, it has done “significant investments over many decades in research and development of our leading IBM mainframe system technology. We will aggressively defend IBM intellectual property from those who try to steal it«.
Currently, Micro Focus is about to be acquired by Canadian enterprise information management company OpenText for $6 billion in cash. It is not clear if the IBM lawsuit could complicate this transaction, or not.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
