Novell Poised To Strike On Slander Of Title Claim

Xenographic writes "As seen in this Groklaw article, Novell is moving to dismiss SCO's slander of title claim with prejudice. They key to it is that SCO needs Novell's claims to be "knowingly false" to establish malice. Since the judge's own order on the motion to remand (see also part 2) questions whether there really was ever actually a copyright transfer, Novell's assertion that there was no transfer cannot be knowingly false, so SCO's case falls apart. Unfortunately, as Novell points out, the judge would be doing this without actually deciding the underlying issue of who owns what copyrights, and SCO could file a completely different suit for breach of contract or something, even though SCO would be unable to refile this slander of title suit. As an aside, I should mention that this isn't the first or only controversy over defamation we've seen in this fiasco by any means."

Comments

Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It

[Bad Move]

Read Rob Enderle's SCO Keynote.

Re:Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It

[ecklesweb]

That would be Godwin's law:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Of course, there's also Freiler's Maxim:

Those that incorrectly invoke Godwin as proof that they have won the debate have in fact run out of relevant points to make, and have, by invoking Godwin, admitted defeat.

Disadvantage of US vs British legal system

[doodlelogic]

While generally you guys get a lot of things right (constitutional protection, etc), one thing that maddens me about these "only in the USA" stories is the freedom you give to lawyers to run amok with cases and spend all their clients money, forcing the other side to spend even more.

Here in the UK (well England and Wales at least), as you may know, the loser in litigation generally has to pick up the winner's legal fees. Where the claim was, e.g. an abuse of process, the fees can be payable on a punitive ("indemnity") basis. If either side is on a shaky financial footing, they can be forced to pay money into court to cover their opponent's litigation risk.

Is anyone thinking of taking these sort of rules into the US system? Or would that not work with the constitution?

Re:Disadvantage of US vs British legal system

[gowen]

If the British system were to be imposed it would have a chilling effect on these types of cases such as malpractice, employee being illegally fired, and class action such as health damage due to materials, such as the asbetos or silicon implants,etc.

Except, of course, we Brits have already noticed this, and set up a process to avoid it. Firstly, the awarding of costs is always at the discretion of the judge, and they rarely, if ever, force a personal litigant to pay the entire costs of a corporate defendant, except when they feel the case is malicious.

Secondly, the government Legal Aid scheme exists to fund such actions, if the Legal Aid Service's lawyers think you have a good case. Like a State Defender, but for prosecutions and civil cases.