IBM said yesterday that it had no intention of reaching a quick settlement with the SCO Group, a small company based in Lindon, Utah, in a legal fight that is causing concern among the many corporations that use the increasingly popular Linux operating system to handle some computing chores.
The SCO Group filed a suit against I.B.M. in March, arguing that I.B.M. violated its contract with SCO by copying code from the Unix operating system to Linux, which is distributed free and is used by I.B.M. on some of its computers.
SCO gave I.B.M. 100 days to settle the case, a deadline that expired yesterday.
"We"ve got a strong defense case, and we"re going to fight it," Trink Guarino, a spokeswoman for I.B.M., said yesterday.
The dispute between SCO and I.B.M. has not yet slowed the advance of Linux in the marketplace, according to industry executives. But the prospect that the suit may linger indefinitely can only add to the anxiety of corporate technology buyers.