The Geneva court ruled that the case was subject to the statute of limitations, preventing legal actions decades after the event, lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc said.
Sambuc, who acted on behalf of Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action in the case, said he would ask Geneva's appeals court to overturn the ruling.
The Geneva ruling is the latest development in a complex four-year legal saga.
GIRCA filed its lawsuit in 2001, claiming that IBM's Hollerith punch-card machines enabled the Nazis boost the efficiency of their killing operations.
The group sued IBM for "moral reparation" and 20,000 usd each in damages, acting on behalf of four German and French Roma and one Polish-born Swedish Rom. All five are Holocaust orphans.
IBM has said that the case is groundless, rejecting allegations that it was in any way complicit in the Holocaust.
It has consistently said that its German subsidiary was taken over by the Nazis and that the parent company was in no way responsible for the way its punch-card machines were used.
jwf/bar/vs/ec
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