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Novell Sale Delayed Due To Patent Investigation

Posted by Soulskill on from the something-is-afoot dept.

darthcamaro writes "Novell's $2.2 billion dollar acquisition by Attachmate isn't going to close as soon as first expected. A key part of the deal is the sale of 882 patents to a consortium of vendors led by Microsoft. The US Department of Justice is investigating the patent deal and is now pushing out the close until at least April 12th. Does this mean the deal is in trouble?"

1 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Unix patents not included in the deal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    Novell will continue to own the Unix-relevant patents according to the information that I have, From what I know (posting as an Attachmate employee - hence anonymous) the Unix patents are not being included in the deal.

    One of my colleagues asked this question of one of the C*O people when they came to visit my workplace to assuage fears within the Attachmate organisation, and the answer was that the Unix patents were not included in the patent transfer package, and that there were perpetual licenses for the Attachmate/Novell entity.

    However, I've not seen any notice of exactly what patents are for offer in the transfer, and I've spend a bit of time asking and not being told.