Utah jury weighing dispute between SCO Group, Novell over ownership of Unix software code
By APFriday, March 26, 2010
Ownership of Unix copyrights in hands of Utah jury
SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake City jury has started deliberations in a case pitting two software companies that each claim ownership of the Unix computer operating systems used by large corporations.
The SCO Group, of Lindon, Utah, filed a lawsuit in 2004 asserting Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc. sold it copyrights when it allowed SCO to take over the business of servicing Unix technology in 1995. Novell says it sold the servicing rights, not the copyrights.
SCO is seeking damages of up to $215 million in U.S. District Court.
A victory for SCO would allow it to revive another lawsuit alleging IBM Corp. dumped proprietary Unix code into the open-source Linux operating system.
IBM has denied any wrongdoing.
The jury started deliberating Friday and is expected to take several days to reach a verdict.
