SCO prepped lawsuit against BofA

The SCO Group filed lawsuits this week against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone, but the Unix seller's attorneys also had prepared a complaint against Bank of America, according to a document.

A Microsoft Word document of SCO's suit against DaimlerChrysler, seen by CNET News.com, originally identified Bank of America as the defendant instead of the automaker. This revision and others in the document can be seen through powerful but often forgotten features in Microsoft Word known as invisible electronic ink.

A feature in the word-processing software tracks changes to documents, who made those changes, and when they were made. These notations typically are invisible to someone reading a Word document. But as some lawyers, businesspeople and politicians have learned the hard way, Word can also display so-called metadata in the document--including the original version and all subsequent changes. This information is available by viewing the document under "original showing markup" or "final showing markup."