SCO v. Novell Trial

For those interested in following the developments in the SCO vs. Novell trial you can find detailed observers notes at the links below. Note that this summary comes mostly from the excellent trial coverage from GROKLAW.NET



Day 1 - Monday March 8, 2010 Day 1 is mostly just the seating of the Jury.

Day 2 - Tuesday March 9, 2010 Day 2 included the opening arguments of both sides and the testimony of Bob Frankenberg, Former CEO of Novell.


Day 3 - Wednesday March 10, 2010 Testimony of Duff Thompson and Ed Chatlos

Day 4 - Thursday March 11, 2010 Most of the day was filled with video depositions by Jack Messman; Former CEO of Novell, Burt Levine a lawyer that came from USL, then worked for Novell and later Santa Cruz. Jim Wilt's depostion which was not heard by the jury; Alek Mohan; CEO of SCO from 1995-1998; and finally live deposition by Bill Broderick, another lawyer that worked for USL and then Novell;

Motion Filed by Novell - Friday March 12, 2010 This motion is to allow Novell to introduce into evidence the prior findings of the court that declares that Novell is in fact the owner of the copyrights and that they did not transfer with the sale. That motion is based on SCO's lawyers making the claim (at least 4 times) that Novell continued to slander SCO's title "to this very day".

Day 5 - Friday March 12, 2010 Continuation of testimony of Bill Broderick and Testimony of Ty Mattingly; Mattingly described himself as the "High Level Business Negotiator" for Novell during the sale of Unix/Unixware to Santa Cruz.

Novell Files a "Petition for Writ of Certiorari" - Review of Ruling to Supreme Court over the 10th Circuit that handed over copyrights to SCO that were not specifically transferred as part of the sale of Unix/Unixware. See the filing here

DAY 6 -
Motion for mistrial; Testimony of Kim Madsen, Steve Sabbath and Darl McBride

Judge Denies 2 Novell Motions, 1 for mistrial and the other to allow evidence on prior judicial opinions in the case.

Novell has filed a Notice of Filing of Offer of Proof Regarding Prior Inconsistent Declaration of Steven Sabbath. It is making a record that SCO was allowed to present testimony in direct examination that Novell knew was contradicted by deposition testimony, but then Novell couldn't tell the jury about it, because of rulings by the judge.

Day 7 -
Testimony of Darl McBride and Christine Botosan

Novell anticipates objections to SCO's Experts' testimony regarding the 'TK-7 v Estate of Barbouti' case -

SCO's motion to allow testimony regardi8ng a previous case and a letter from Brent Hatch. -

Day 8 -
Continued testimony of Darl McBride - McBride admits on stand that SCO did not need the copyrights to run their Unix business and that they only needed them for SCOSource. Also admitted into evidence was an exhibit showing that HP did not take a SCOSource license in part because they equated it with "supporting terrorism"

New Proposed Jury Instructions and Novell Tries again to get prior court rulings admitted as evidence -

Day 9 -
Jury hears about Kimball's Rulings and Botosan

Day 10 -
Testimony of Chris Stone, O'Gara, Maciaszek, Nagle -

APA's "Included Assets" did not list SVR4.2 - Research Project -

Novell says "elliott Offer" "Inadequate".. -