International Business Machines Corp (IBM) has won its UK court battle against the Switzerland-based tech company LzLabs, which the U.S. firm had accused of stealing its technology.
LzLabs, which is owned by American serial technology entrepreneur and BMC Software founder John Moores, was said to have illegally reverse-engineered IBM’s mainframe software in order to develop its Software Defined Mainframe (SDM). IBM said LzLabs used a UK subsidiary, Winsopia, to purchase an IBM mainframe computer in 2013, before using the access to reverse-engineer IBM’s mainframe software. LzLabs said its SDM was the result of years of work analyzing how customer applications interact with IBM’s mainframe.
High Court Backs IBM
Ruling in favor of Big Blue today, Mrs Justice O’Farrell said that “LzLabs and Mr Moores unlawfully procured (those) breaches,” Reuters reported.
The case was originally filed to the High Court in September 2021, with a similar action taking place in the U.S. in parallel. According to the claim lodged in Texas, IBM accused LzLabs owners John Moores and Thilo Rockmann of “engaging in a scheme to free-ride on IBM’s mainframe business.”
British law firm Slaughter & May noted that “IBM did not like the fact that SDM effectively helped users to migrate off IBM’s hardware as it enabled applications which were designed to be used on IBM mainframes to be used on non-mainframe computers.”
Last July, IBM settled a lawsuit accusing UK software business Micro Focus of infringing IBM’s copyrights. IBM said Micro Focus “brazenly” copied and reverse engineered its own software in violation of copyright law.
Is IBM a Good Stock to Buy?
On Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on IBM, based on seven Buys, six Holds and one Sell. The average IBM price target of $260.00 is almost exactly where the stock was last trading after a 30% rally for the stock in the last six months.
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