Judge issues final judgment in case involving SCO, Novell

A federal court judge has issued a final judgment in litigation involving Lindon-based SCO Group Inc. and Novell Inc.

The case began as a "slander of title" lawsuit against Novell, involving questions over ownership of the Unix operating system and UnixWare software copyrights. But Kimball ruled in August 2007 that Novell was the owner. Novell sought revenues that SCO had received from Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and other Fortune 1000 companies when SCO licensed certain Unix technology to them.

The final-judgment order by U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball in Salt Lake City last week reiterates much of the August 2007 order and a July ruling that awarded Novell more than $2.5 million. The final judgment orders the dismissal of certain claims but also allows the parties to appeal the earlier rulings on certain other claims.

The Novell-SCO dispute was an offshoot of another SCO lawsuit, against International Business Machines Corp., filed in 2003. SCO accused IBM of improperly placing proprietary Unix code into Linux, an open-source operating system that competes with Unix.

SCO is in bankruptcy, and the lawsuit against IBM has been stayed because of the bankruptcy.