Mixed rulings advance two SCO cases

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Very misleading headline

SCO's 'victories' are mitigation in rather significant legal setbacks.

In the case of Novell, Judge Kimbal refused SCO's attempt to remand the case to state court, meaning that the principal issue remains the question of copyright ownership. If SCO cannot prove that Novell transferred the copyright ownership, this puts SCO in rather bad straits for other lawsuits. The judge did refuse Novell's motion for immediate dismissal, meaning copyright ownership cannot be decided outright, but that the transfer douments must be more closely examined. If you want to call that a "win," it's a win within a loss. The judge did go further and state:

"Although the case will obviously require contract interpretation, at this stage of the litigation, the agreements raise substantial doubt as to whether the APA as amended by Amendment No. 2 qualifies as a Section 204(a) writing."

So he has already signalled doubt about SCO's ownership, although he has not closed out the issue entirely.

As for the IBM case, the judge again ruled against SCO's motion to bifurcate the patent infrimngement countersuit. Acknowledging that IBM's counterclaims will increase the discovery requirement, he has allowed more time, although less than SCO requested, while stating that the court will not modify the Scheduling Order again absent compelling circumstances. SCO had actually used the excuse of delay in the discovery, which it had caused by failure to comply with the court's order to compel, as justification in requesting more time. Here again, the court noted IBM's argument that SCO's foot-dragging allowed more time to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt. Amazingly, the plaintiff, who one year ago was claiming to have discovered hundreds of thousands of lines of purloined code, is still unable to provide evidence to the court.

So SCO won two. I suppose you could say Napoleon won one by leading 30,000 troops out of Russia.

Posted by: IT_User   Posted on: 06/11/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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