No ruling yet on Novell-SCO suit dismissal

After hearing arguments Tuesday, Federal Judge Dale Kimball said he'd rule later on a Novell motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the SCO Group alleging slander of title in connection with ownership of Unix copyrights. The case is crucial to SCO lawsuits that argue Linux infringes Unix copyrights.

Kimball, in U.S. District Court in Utah, didn't give a date for issuing a ruling in Novell's dismissal motion or in SCO's motion to remand the case to state court, representatives for both companies said Tuesday. At the hearing, Novell argued the case should be dismissed because it never specifically transferred the Unix copyrights when it sold the Unix business to SCO's predecessor through two contracts in 1995 and 1996, Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said. SCO argued dismissal because there are relevant documents and witnesses that still must be presented, SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said.