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The software company also accused SCO with slander of title for claiming ownership of the Unix copyrights in the countersuit, filed Friday in U.S. district court in Utah. That's the same charge SCO leveled against Novell in its own 2004 suit.
Novell, which sells a version of the Linux operating system, also denied numerous SCO charges in the filing.
"SCO made its public statements claiming ownership of the Unix copyrights...with knowledge that title to these copyrights remains with Novell," Novell said in its filing. "SCO made such statements with the intent to cause customers and potential customers of Novell not to do business with Novell (and) to slander and impugn the ownership rights of Novell in Unix and UnixWare."
The months-old legal dispute is a key foundation to two SCO court cases concerning proprietary Unix and open-source Linux, directed against IBM and car parts retailer AutoZone. If Novell can show it owns the Unix copyright, both those cases are seriously compromised.
SCO, based in Lindon, Utah, said its lawyers are reviewing Novell's filing and that counterclaims aren't unexpected in such cases. It did not comment further.
Suit laid out
In Friday's suit, Novell argues that SCO broke the terms of a 1995 contract called the Asset Purchase Agreement, in which Novell transferred some Unix assets to the Santa Cruz Operation. That company in 2000 sold its Unix assets to SCO, which was named Caldera Systems at the time.
SCO has said that a 1996 amendment to the agreement shows that Unix copyrights were transferred as part of the assets. Novell flatly denies the claims. "Neither (the amendment) nor the Asset Purchase Agreement were intended to, nor do they actually, transfer ownership of the Unix or UnixWare copyrights owned by Novell...Title to the Unix copyrights...remains with Novell," according to the Friday court filing.
SCO's first contract violation lies in its failure to comply with requirements to supply Novell with information about licensing activities regarding versions of Unix System V, Novell argues. Specifically, Novell says the company should provide details of Unix licensing deals in 2003 with Microsoft and Sun Microsystems that brought SCO millions of dollars.
The second violation arises from a provision in the Asset Purchase Agreement that calls on SCO to give Novell 95 percent of any license revenue from Unix System V, Novell says. That money includes revenue received from Microsoft and Sun, Novell asserts.
"Under the Asset Purchase Agreement, SCO had no authority to enter into the Sun and Microsoft (Unix) licenses," Novell said.
Novell is asking the Utah court to compel SCO to provide the contracts with Sun and Microsoft and to put revenue from those deals in a trust so that Novell can get it before SCO spends it.
SCO has had difficulties of late. In a 2002 memo that came to light in July, a SCO engineer said he had not found a "smoking gun" that showed evidence of Linux copyright infringement. In June, the company reported the latest in a series of difficult financial quarters, as its Unix product sales continued to decline. And in February, a judge criticized SCO's inability to produce evidence to support its legal claims.
Things haven't all gone Novell's way, either. The Waltham, Mass.-based company in June lost a bid to have SCO's case dismissed.
See more CNET content tagged:
SCO Group Inc.,
Novell Inc.,
Unix,
Unix System V,
asset
compoany, run by a scam-focused management with no real assets
for even short term survival, except for MS's contributions. I am
very sick and tired of finding out that SCO is still around. I hope
Novell, and every one else, really sticks it to them.
I look at it this way. If SCO has a legit claim (although I'm not sure what their claim is anymore) then they have every right to persue it in court. However, I have the distinct feeling that either they have not ground to stand on or they are really going to drop one big bomb on us all. Personally I am going with the first. Of course if they don't win and go belly up I hope everybody effected by this lawsuit goes after them like a hungry tiger after it's meal.
I would love to see SCO get sued by every linux vender, company that uses linux, company that sells linux, and anybody else with a good claim to damages. Then I would like to see Novell, IBM, or whoever take back Unix and open source it. That would end that wouldn't it. Of course I am sure that due to licence agreements with other companies it would be awhile before that would happen anyway.
I am, ...SCO-ula.
Richard Seibt, CEO of SuSE Linux AG, also complained about the vagueness of SCO's allegations against Linux. SuSE knows what is in its code and has had processes in place to avoid violating intellectual property rights, he said Wednesday. "So we really don't understand what SCO is talking about," he said.
Davis,
http://www.my-credit-cards.co.uk/
Novell made a smart move in going after the money, and if that provision is there it's near end game for SCO.