SCO v. Novell
| SCO v. Novell | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | United States District Court for the District of Utah |
| Full case name | The SCO Group, Inc. v. Novell, Inc. |
| Decided | June 10, 2010 |
| Case history | |
| Subsequent action(s) | Appeal: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Appeal: Supreme Court of the United States |
| Related action(s) | United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware |
| Case opinions | |
| SCO's claims of ownership of Unix intellectual property dismissed; Novell's claims of ownership confirmed; SCO owed Novell $2.5 million in unpaid royalties |
|
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting |
Dale A. Kimball Ted Stewart |
| Keywords | |
| copyright, slander of title, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duties, conversion, unjust enrichment | |
SCO v. Novell was a United States lawsuit in which The SCO Group (SCO) claimed ownership of the source code for the Unix operating system, including portions of Linux. SCO sought to have the court declare that SCO owned the rights to the Unix code, including the copyrights, and that Novell had committed slander of title by claiming those rights for itself.
The case hinged upon the interpretation of asset-transfer agreements between Novell and one of SCO's predecessor companies, the Santa Cruz Operation. Novell counter-sued, claiming that the asset-transfer agreements did not, in fact, transfer the intellectual property rights SCO sought. Novell further asked the Court to find that SCO had breached the agreements by signing Unix license agreements with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft without paying Novell the agreed percentage of those agreements.
Novell was found to be the owner of the Unix copyrights, and SCO was found to have breached the asset-transfer agreements.
Novell, a vendor of proprietary network operating systems, acquired the rights to the original Unix source code when it purchased Unix System Laboratories from Unix's creator, AT&T Corporation, on June 14, 1993. Novell's rights to parts of the Unix source code were established as part of the settlement in USL v. BSDi.
On September 19, 1995, Novell entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) with the Santa Cruz Operation ("Santa Cruz"), a Unix vendor. The APA transferred certain rights regarding Unix, and Novell's UnixWare version of Unix, from Novell to Santa Cruz. These rights included the right to develop and market new versions of UnixWare, and the right to license SVRX (System V Release X) UNIX incidentally or with Novell's permission. It also required Santa Cruz to act as Novell's agent for the collection for certain royalties due under such licenses.
In 2000, Caldera Systems acquired the Server Software and Services divisions of Santa Cruz, as well as the UnixWare and OpenServer Unix technologies. Caldera Systems thus became the legal successor to Santa Cruz for the purposes of the APA. A year later Caldera Systems changed its name to Caldera International in 2001 and to The SCO Group (SCO) in 2002. Although the Santa Cruz Operation was colloquially known as "SCO," legally The SCO Group is a different company from the Santa Cruz Operation.
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