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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?"

12 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. What I can't figure out... by the+linux+geek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... is who actually owns the UNIX copyrights after the sale. I'm not talking about patents, which is what keeps getting brought up - who actually owns the copyright to the latest version of UNIX System V? Is it SCO, who developed it, or Novell, who supposedly owns UNIX, or someone else?

    1. Re:What I can't figure out... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's a shame that Unix has ended up being a football that greedy companies fight over now.

      It's a shame, but it's hardly surprising.

      UNIX and a lot of the concepts (and code) in it are the foundation for a lot of stuff that's used in modern operating systems. If you can own that, you can have leverage over most operating systems.

      Having Microsoft suddenly own the copyrights and everything else for UNIX would be bad for anybody that isn't them -- if every other OS had to pay Microsoft licensing fees, then they stand to gain quite a bit.

      Companies are generally greedy, especially once they're big enough that lawyers play a significant part in how they run their day to day stuff.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:What I can't figure out... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I guess the continuing fear is that Microsoft and other parties with some interest in squashing Linux will just continue tossing potshots at it via the copyrights. Yes, we all know the history of Unix and how things got to be where they are, but the Big Guys have never had a problem with creating their own fraudulent narratives.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:What I can't figure out... by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 2

      UNIX and a lot of the concepts (and code) in it are the foundation for a lot of stuff that's used in modern operating systems. If you can own that, you can have leverage over most operating systems.

      UNIX is from the 1970s. Patents last 20 years. Anybody can do the math on that one.

      And the copyright is largely muted by the license Berkeley distributed so much of it under. How much of UNIX do you really care about that isn't available under the BSD license?

    4. Re:What I can't figure out... by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 2

      The fear is that with enough lawyers and money, someone could undercut the things that we here on Slashdot generally accept to be true, and re-open the debate.

      But that's always the case. It's like the Linux patent FUD. They can spread FUD all they want, but until they identify specific patents or specific code they're just pissing in the wind. And as soon as they identify something specific, it immediately gets replaced and the threat dissipates.

      I've made this point before in the patent context: There are only two ways it makes business sense to enforce a software patent. The first is if you're a patent troll so that your target can't make any counterclaims against your products since you don't have any. The second is if you're a huge conglomerate and your target is a small software developer, in which case software patents allow you to destroy them because you have a thousand patents that will read on anything they could possibly make and just the legal fees will bankrupt them, so they have to do what you want.

      Patent litigation doesn't work between large companies because they each have enough patents the other is infringing that if they don't cross license, neither of them can actually sell any of their own products -- and on top of that the target has enough resources to try to invalidate your patents, which if they succeed leaves you vulnerable to suit by third parties because you've weakened your defensive arsenal. Which is why everybody cross-licenses everything. I heard someone say that the way they do it is to have each side bring a stack of their patents in to a meeting and whoever has the smaller stack of patents pays the other party based on the number of inches difference in the stacks of paper. It's preposterous.

      But as long as software patents exist, the same pretty much goes for copyright. Let's say Microsoft gets the UNIX copyrights. Now they're going to sue IBM over Linux and try to keep IBM from selling Linux servers. The problem is that IBM has a zillion software patents that Microsoft is almost certainly infringing hundreds or thousands of. And so does everybody else that it could possibly be worth Microsoft's time to sue.

      So plan B: Instead of Microsoft buying the copyrights, they make sure they get into the hands of some troll who will go after Linux vendors. But that's a recipe for a proxy war where each side starts laying mines for the other by selling patents and copyrights the other is infringing to various trolls. Which in the best case just leads to the same truce where each side agrees to stop doing that and just cross-license. And in the worst case it leads to litigation Armageddon because you get a bunch of loose nukes in the hands of unconstrained trolls -- which makes it exceptionally dangerous for anyone be the first mover toward that sort of outcome.

  2. Here's what it means by bogaboga · · Score: 2

    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?

    Nope! It means the deal has hit a [major] bump depending on how you see it.

    1. Re:Here's what it means by Beelzebud · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It just means the proper people haven't been bribed yet.

    2. Re:Here's what it means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey we call those campaign contributions here... Or 'dinner'.

  3. Patent about selling companies by michelcolman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apparently there's a patent about "selling a company to another company". This may take a while...

  4. 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.

  5. The fine print in "Deal with the Devil" by denis-The-menace · · Score: 3, Funny

    Only now they read the fine print in the deal they made with MS regarding the SUSE Linux vouchers?

    I'm shocked!

    --
    Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
  6. There's probably a lot more to Novell than *nix by yuna49 · · Score: 2

    While everyone here always focuses on what this means for Linux, Novell sells a number of products that have nothing per se to do with *nix like GroupWise and ZenWorks. Hell, there still may be existing patents that relate to NetWare.