Open Source Blog

“On January 4, 2003, [SCO CEO Darl] McBride received an email from Michael Anderer, a consultant for SCO retained to examine its intellectual property. Anderer stated that the [agreement between Novell and Santa Cruz] ‘transferred substantially less’ of Novell’s intellectual property than Novell owned. Anderer noted that Santa Cruz’s ‘asset purchase’ from Novell ‘excludes all patents, copyrights, and just about everything else’. Anderer cautioned that ‘[w]e really need to be clear on what we can license. It may be a lot less than we think’,” the Judge stated in his decision.

Just days after Anderer’s email the company launched its SCOsource intellectual property business with McBride stating: “SCO owns much of the core Unix intellectual property, and has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights.”

Judge Kimball notes repeated attempts by McBride to encourage Novell to hand over the Unix copyrights in February, March and May, while SCO chairman, Ralph Yarro, met with Novell’s then vice chairman of the office of the chief executive, Chris Stone, in May, asking the company to give SCO the copyrights. Stone declined.

As was pointed out on Groklaw in May, when the details of Anderer’s email were redacted, “I think it would be fair to characterize it by saying that Novell is effectively saying that SCO has been willfully pretending to own the copyrights when it knew better all along.”

The company played a high-stakes game of poker with regards to ownership of the Unix copyrights, and it lost. The further legal implications for SCO will depend on whether it is viewed that the company failed to understand what was required for a winning hand, or was simply bluffing.

Judge Kimball’s decision indicates that SCO could soon be involved in several more lawsuits -- this time directed at SCO by disgruntled shareholders.