SCO accuses Novell of slander
The SCO Group has accused Novell of slander.
In a lawsuit it’s just filed in a Utah state court against Novell, SCO says the company has made "false statements with the intent to cause customers and potential customers to not do business with SCO". It also says Novell has made false claims that it owns the Unix and UnixWare copyrights.
SCO claims:
* Novell has improperly filed copyright registrations in the United States Copyright Office for UNIX technology covered by SCO’s copyrights.
* Novell has made false and misleading public claims that it, and not SCO, owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights.
* Novell has made false statements with the intent to cause customers and potential customers to not do business with SCO.
* Novell has attempted, in bad faith, to block SCO’s ability to enforce its copyrights.
* Novell’s false and misleading representations that it owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights has caused SCO irreparable harm to its copyrights, its business, and its reputation.
The lawsuit calls for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief as well as damages.
"The injunction would require Novell to assign to SCO all copyrights that Novell has wrongfully registered, prevent Novell from representing any ownership interest in those copyrights, and require Novell to retract or withdraw all representations it has made regarding its purported ownership of those copyrights," says a press statement here, continuing:
"SCO takes this action today given Novell’s recent and repeated announcements regarding their claimed ownership of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights. SCO has received many questions about Novell’s actions from potential customers, investors and the press. Although SCO owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights, Novell’s efforts to claim ownership of these copyrights has forced this action," said Mark Heise, partner, Boies, Schiller and Flexner, LLP. "We encourage the public and commercial Linux users to read the Asset Purchase Agreement from 1995 (including Attachment E found at http://www.sco.com/novell) and Amendment 2 so they can see for themselves that SCO owns the copyrights to UNIX and UnixWare."
The lawsuit seeks damages "in an amount to be proven at trial for Novell’s alleged slander of SCO’s title to the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights. In addition, the lawsuit seeks punitive damages in an amount to be proven at trial for Novell’s malicious and willful conduct."
