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Novell wins right to Unix copyrights

By Nancy Gohring , IDG News Service , 08/10/2007
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Novell won a significant ruling in its lengthy battle with The SCO Group on Friday.

A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah Central District found that Novell is the owner of the Unix and UnixWare copyrights, dismissing SCO's charges of slander and breach of contract.

The judge also ruled that SCO owes Novell for SCO's licensing revenue from Sun and Microsoft. SCO is obligated to pass through to Novell a portion of those licenses, the judge said.

The ruling may have implications for SCO's ongoing lawsuit against IBM. SCO has alleged that IBM has violated its intellectual property by contributing to Linux. Now that a court has ruled that SCO does not own the Unix copyright, those claims may be diminished.

More to come.

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A Minor correctionBy Anonymous on August 13, 2007, 10:01 amThe excerpt of the ruling on Groklaw mentions a factual dispute over the amount of money owed to Novell. There may be a small amount of code that originated at...

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Open Group and UnixBy Anonymous on August 11, 2007, 2:15 pmOn their web site the Open Group has the following to say about their relationship to Unix: "The Open Group holds the definition of what a UNIX system is and...

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Open Group holds the rights in trustBy freecode on August 11, 2007, 12:21 pmThe Open Group holds the copyrights in trust for Novell. SCO Group tried to usurp those rights and played a very bad legal gambit. They lose and owe Novell 95% of...

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RE: Novell wins right to Unix copyrightsBy james on August 10, 2007, 10:47 pmI thought the open group had those copyrights?

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