Judge Won't Throw Out SCO Slander Lawsuit
A federal judge refused to throw out The SCO Group's slander-of-title lawsuit against another Utah technology company, Novell Inc.
U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ruled it was too early to sort through competing claims traded by SCO and Novell in their fight over ownership of copyrights to the Unix computer operating system and UnixWare.
Lindon-based SCO says Novell hurt its business and reputation by publicly and emphatically denying it sold copyrights when it allowed SCO to take over the business of servicing Unix technology, an operating system used by large corporations.
In his ruling Monday, Kimball refused to let Novell off the hook despite having previously raised doubts about whether any copyrights were transferred and finding merit in the competing ownership claims of both companies. Given that, Novell argued it couldn't have acted with malice in making its ownership claim. Malice is a required element of a slander.
But SCO argues Novell timed its announcement in 2003 to coincide with the release of an SCO earnings statement in an apparent effort to scare off investors and drive down SCO stock.
It also said Novell reiterated its claim after acknowledging it didn't have a copy of an amendment to the 1995 deal with SCO.
The slander-of-title case parallels another of SCO's lawsuits alleging IBM Corp. dumped confidential Unix code into the Linux operating system, which is freely distributed and has no mechanism in place to pay licensing fees.
SCO is suing International Business Machines Corp. for allegedly giving away Unix software code to Linux developers. SCO acquired rights to Unix through a series of corporate acquisitions and mergers.
IBM has denied the allegations while turning over millions of lines of code for examination by SCO. The case has dragged on for nearly three years and a trial isn't expected for another year.
Novell bought Unix from AT&T Corp. in 1992, and SCO has said its predecessor, Santa Cruz Operations Inc., paid Novell 6.1 million shares of SCO stock valued over $100 million for Unix rights.
Novell, which has operations in Provo and Waltham, Mass., and IBM are among companies that have begun developing products for use in Linux.
Associated Press
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 4163 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago