SCO sues Novell for slander of its title to Unix

The suit accuses Novell of falsely claiming ownership of Unix and UnixWare copyrights

By Grant Gross

January 21, 2004 12:00 PM ET

IDG News Service - The SCO Group Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Novell Inc., saying the company has engaged in bad-faith efforts to deny SCO's rights to Unix and UnixWare.
The suit, filed in a Utah state court yesterday, alleges that Novell has made false claims that it owns the Unix and UnixWare copyrights, according to a SCO statement. Since mid-2003, the two companies have been locked in a legal dispute over which of them owns the source code for Unix System V. SCO's claim to the source code is the foundation of its allegations that the Linux operating system contains SCO intellectual property. In December, Novell confirmed that it had been filing copyrights on parts of the Unix System V code.
The new SCO lawsuit, which claims that Novell has slandered SCO's title to Unix, also alleges that:

Novell has improperly filed copyright registrations for Unix technology covered by SCO's copyrights.

Novell has made false statements with the intent of causing customers and potential customers to avoid doing business with SCO.

Novell has attempted, in bad faith, to block SCO's ability to enforce its copyrights.

Novell's false and misleading representations that it owns the Unix and UnixWare copyrights have caused SCO irreparable harm to its copyrights, its business and its reputation.

Novell representatives haven't seen a copy of the lawsuit yet and couldn't comment directly on it, said Bruce Lowry, a Novell spokesman. "We'll certainly be defending our interests," he said.
The lawsuit, filed in Salt Lake City, requests preliminary and permanent injunctions requiring Novell to assign to SCO all copyrights that Novell has registered and preventing Novell from representing any ownership interest in those copyrights.
SCO's decision to file the lawsuit came after "repeated announcements regarding [Novell's] claimed ownership" of Unix and UnixWare copyrights, SCO lawyer Mark Heise, a partner at the law firm Boies, Schiller and Flexner LLP, said in a statement. "Although SCO owns the Unix and UnixWare copyrights, Novell's efforts to claim ownership of these copyrights has forced this action."
Heise pointed to an Asset Purchase Agreement from 1995 -- including Attachment E found at www.sco.com/novell -- as evidence that SCO owns the copyrights.
The lawsuit seeks damages in an amount to be proved at trial for Novell's alleged slander of SCO's title to the Unix and UnixWare copyrights. In addition, the lawsuit seeks punitive damages for what the statement called Novell's malicious and willful conduct.

Reprinted with permission from

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