The SCO Group Inc. won a legal victory in its multibillion-dollar lawsuit against IBM over software code used in Linux when a federal judge in Salt Lake City ordered IBM to turn over programming code to SCO’s lawyers.

The software code in question is at the center of the lawsuit SCO filed in 2003 accusing the computer giant of violating its trade secrets by introducing part of its Unix source code, or software blueprint, into Linux — a freely available operating system. Lindon, Utah-based SCO is also trying to get users of Linux software to pay the company licensing fees.

“SCO is pleased with the court’s order and we look forward to obtaining this important discovery so we can continue with our preparation for trial,” the company said in a statement.

Executives from both SCO and IBM weren’t available for comment.

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in the fall.

SCO had filed a motion saying IBM failed to provide information material to the case that SCO believes will show that IBM had taken proprietary Unix code and introduced it into Linux.

Judge Brooke Wells granted SCO a partial review of IBM’s programming code and said that SCO could be given complete access in the future if IBM withholds any further data.

SCO has been posting losses due to ongoing legal fees in its lawsuit against IBM and other companies. But SCO shares rallied as much as 34% today after news of the court ruling was made public. Shares in SCO were up 67 cents, or 19%, at $4.20 in early-afternoon Nasdaq trading.

ComputerWorld