   sco v. novell was a united states lawsuit in which the the sco group (sco) claimed ownership of the source code for the unix operating system, including portions of linux. sco sought to have the court declare that sco owned the rights to the unix code, including the copyrights, and that novell had committed slander of title by claiming those rights for itself. the case hinged upon the interpretation of asset-transfer agreements between novell and one of sco's predecessor companies, the santa cruz operation. novell counter-sued, claiming that the asset-transfer agreements did not, in fact, transfer the intellectual property rights sco sought. novell further asked the court to find that sco had breached the agreements by signing unix license agreements with sun microsystems and microsoft without paying novell the agreed percentage of those agreements. novell was found to be the owner of the unix copyrights, and sco was found to have breached the asset-transfer agreements. == background == novell, a vendor of proprietary network operating systems, acquired the rights to the original unix source code when it purchased unix system laboratories from unix's creator, at&t corporation, on june 14, 1993. novell's rights to parts of the unix source code were established as part of the settlement in usl v. bsdi. on september 19, 1995, novell entered into an asset purchase agreement (apa) with the santa cruz operation ("santa cruz"), a unix vendor.  the apa transferred certain rights regarding u
2010_in_United_States_case_law Novell SCOaLinux_controversies United_States_district_court_cases