The four-day trial in U.S. District Court for Utah came to an end after each side presented closing arguments over how much the Lindon-based SCO Group may owe Novell over SCO's licensing of the Unix operating system. Novell, which was founded in Utah and once owned Unix, claimed it is owed $19.9 million because SCO breached terms of the purchase agreement when Novell sold the operating system in 1995.
A verdict by Judge Dale Kimball will culminate a four-year legal battle between the two software companies, part of a larger dispute SCO began when it sued IBM in 2003. SCO claimed IBM had used Unix as a basis for improvements to the Linux operating system that allowed Linux to compete with SCO's UnixWare to run businesses' computer systems.
"I'll try to get a decision out without undue delay," Kimball said.
SCO President and CEO Darl McBride, who was in court for the final day of testimony and arguments, said afterward that SCO plans to appeal Kimball's Aug. 10 ruling that Novell, and not SCO, owned versions of Unix prior to the 1995 sale.
"We're looking forward to our day in court," said McBride. "All we're looking for is a hearing on the facts."
Novell attorney Eric Acker told Kimball that Novell is entitled to $19.9 million in fees that SCO collected from agreements with Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and other companies because those licenses violated the terms of the 1995 sale, as Kimball ruled previously.
But Stuart Singer, attorney for The SCO Group, said under that sale agreement, SCO had the ability to license the older versions of the Unix if they were "incidental" to the newest versions of the operating system the company was marketing.
Testimony by SCO employees, who had worked for 20 years or more with Unix, including at Novell, showed that Novell never previously tried to collect those revenues, Singer said. In fact, he added, testimony and evidence showed that Novell even agreed at one point that SCO had the right to license the older system as part of a new product.
