At the beginning of its massive legal fight against Linux in 2003, The SCO Group Inc. imagined a day when companies like IBM, Novell Inc. and others would pay it large amounts of cash for alleged infringements on SCO-owned Unix code.
Instead, even as those legal fights meander through U.S. courts, the tables were turned and SCO yesterday was ordered to pay $2.55 million to Novell for collecting Unix licensing revenue from Sun Microsystems Inc. that it wasn't entitled to collect.
In a 43-page decision, which was posted on the Groklaw.com Web site, U.S. District Court Judge Dale A. Kimball in Salt Lake City ruled that the money was owed to Novell under an arrangement made by SCO's predecessor, the former Santa Cruz Operation, which later was bought by Caldera International Inc. and became The SCO Group.
Novell acquired the Unix systems business of AT&T Corp. in the 1980s. Later, Novell broke up and sold its Unix properties in 1994 and 1995, including a deal with the former Santa Cruz Operation.
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