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In an interview Feb. 15 with Linux-Watch, SCO CEO Darl McBride said that his companys primary attorneys, Boies, Schiller & Flexner, are indeed trying to serve a subpoena for a deposition on Pamela Jones, editor of Groklaw, the legal IT news site.
McBride said that the idea for serving Jones came from the law-firm. “Its my understanding that she has some material of importance to our slander of title case with Novell. I dont know the exact details.”
This case sprang from Novells contention that it, and not SCO, owns Unixs IP (intellectual property) rights. Novell claims that neither the APA (asset purchase agreement) of Sept. 19, 1995, which transferred Unix and UnixWare to Santa Cruz Operations, nor Amendment 2 to the APA gave SCO any copyrights to Unix.
If Novell wins this point in Federal Court, then SCOs case against IBM for placing Unix IP code into Linux falls apart like a house of cards with the bottom card knocked out.
SCO responded to Novells attack with a “slander of title” suit. SCO cant simply claim that Novell is in breech of contract. Thats because todays SCO isnt the same company that bought Unix from Novell in the APA (asset purchase agreement).
To put it in laymans terms, SCO is claiming that it should have gotten the IP rights—the title, as it were—to the Unix car, but SCO tacitly admits that it has never gotten the “ownership on paper” or “instrument of conveyance.”
Therefore, SCO wants the court to order Novell to give it the title, the ownership of Unixs IP rights.