Novell says UNIX IP not sold

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 25 November 2010 09:28

Business IT - Open Source

Novell has announced that its intellectual property pertaining to UNIX remains with the company after its sale to Attachmate Corporation.

Novell was sold to Attachmate a few days ago; simultaneously a consortium organised by Microsoft purchased 882 patents for $US450 million.

 

The ownership of the UNIX IP was reaffirmed by a jury in March this year after a court case that ran for nearly six years.

Numerous writers have speculated that Microsoft would now be in ownership of the UNIX IP and use it to stifle the spread of other operating systems to its own benefit.

"Novell will continue to own Novell's UNIX copyrights following completion of the merger as a subsidiary of Attachmate. Novell filed a Form 8-K/A with the SEC on November 22, 2010, with respect to the Merger Agreement," the company's chief marketing officer - UNIX Copyrights, John Dragoon said in a terse statement.

The UNIX IP was at contest in a court case with SCO, which is still dragging on. A jury in Utah reaffirmed Novell's ownership of the IP in March this year.

SCO filed the case in 2004, after Novell asserted its rights to the UNIX copyrights.

Novell's action, in May 2003, came after SCO had filed a case against IBM in March 2003, claiming that IBM had violated contractual obligations it had with SCO by contributing UNIX code to Linux.

SCO based its case against IBM on a claim that it had purchased the UNIX rights from Novell in 1995; this led to Novell's claim and, subsequently, SCO's suit.