Bonum Certa Men Certa

Red Hat Appears to Have Done More Against Acacia (Patent Troll)

Racing



Summary: The two companies in red defended themselves against a Microsoft-associated patent troll, but details about the trial remain limited even after its conclusion; no statement from Novell yet

YESTERDAY we shared the press release from Red Hat as soon as it arrived. The short story is that Acacia gets defeated as GNU/Linux triumphs, again. It is a different story when companies with software patents actually name the patents rather than engage in racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].



Anyway, this morning in the news we found just 3 articles which discussed the case right after the press release. Boston (near Novell) has the following almost-identical pair of articles:

Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc. won a verdict in a case brought by a Texas company that claimed their Linux-based products infringed patents for ways to share icons across computer workstations.


 

Waltham’s Novell and Red Hat of Raleigh, N.C., won a federal verdict in a case brought by a Texas company that claimed their Linux-based software products infringed patents for ways to share icons across computer workstations.


The press near Red Hat does not even mention Novell in the opening:

Red Hat has won a legal fight with a small Texas company that claimed the Raleigh-based software maker infringed on its patents.


Is it possible that Red Hat did most of the work to thwart the lawsuit? It did appear that way at times. There is no word from Novell, either. Did Novell do less in this case or is it just bragging less? It is worth adding that Novell's defense in the SCO case can be seen as selfish from Novell's point of view; UNIX copyrights are probably worth a lot of money. Added below are the latest stories about SCO vs. Novell. _____ [1] Unix copyrights: SCO want a new ruling

[2] SCO: jurors too busy Facebooking to rule on Unix claim

[3] Circular Arguments

[4] Daily Dose - HP to Buy Palm

SCO Won't Give Up on Unix Copyright Battle After a US judge (in 2007) and later a jury (a few weeks ago) ruled that Novell owned the copyrights to Unix, SCO still wants to continue the legal battle that has caused themselves to go bankrupt.

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