No winner in Novell v SCO trial

US DISTRUCT COURT Judge Dale A Kimball issued his ruling in the SCO v Novell lawsuit Wednesday, ten weeks after a four-day bench trial to decide how much money SCO owes to Novell.

The lawsuit was filed by SCO in January of 2004 as a slander of title action alleging that Novell improperly claimed to own UNIX SVRX copyrights that rightfully belonged to SCO.

However, on August 10, 2007, Judge Kimball ruled on several partial summary judgment motions that turned the case entirely around.

Thus the case initially filed as SCO v Novell effectively turned into Novell v SCO at trial.

In his trial ruling, Judge Kimball decided that SCO owes Novell $2,547,817 for agreeing to unilaterally amend Sun's SVRX licence.

He also ruled that SCO did not have the right to enter into its SVRX licencing agreement with Sun without Novell's prior consent.

That judgment amount will likely increase after Novell requests prejudgment interest as well as, possibly, reimbursement of its attorneys' fees.

However, Judge Kimball's ruling granted Novell only a fraction of the amount it sought at trial, which was more than $20 million. He accepted SCO's argument that its licence deal with Microsoft and its SCOsource licence sales were primarily about Unixware, although those necessarily implicated SVRX licences as well.

SCO, of course, is trying to spin Judge Kimball's ruling as a win. As though being ordered to pay Novell over $2.5 million, plus interest and attorneys' fees, really counts as a win.

But then SCO, being SCO, plans to appeal. Yet the appeals court could decide to reverse Judge Kimball's ruling that SCO doesn't owe Novell for the licencing fees it received from Microsoft and its SCOsource licencees.

But that possibility won't dawn on SCO until it happens. So SCO's follies will continue. µ

See Also
Darl McBride remains clueless
SCO will have to face trial soon

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