Image via CrunchBaseThe Software Company, Novell Inc., has just recently regained the authority to pursue with its former long-running antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. The appeals court has reversed the previous decision of the lower court which had awarded the judgment in respect to Microsoft.
Image via CrunchBaseNovell Inc. was actually acquired by Attachmate Corp back in the start of this year, and since then it has been laying stress that its operating system products along with few other software applications were wrongly constricted out of the market by Microsoft back in the 1990s. Novell Inc. has had an agreement signed which gave it the complete rights for suing Microsoft, through a separate company named, Caldera, back in 1996. Hence the company went on to sue Microsoft for their incorrect practices of competition in the OS market, this consequently went in the favor of the company and it received a total sum of $280 million to settle the case. Four years have passed now since the settlement.
Afterwards in 2004, Novell Inc. itself sued Microsoft according to their own rights as the company asserted that its word processing software, WordPerfect, was also among one of the victims of the incorrect competition practices of Microsoft. This action was a product of arrangements with computer makers. The case was carried and just last year it was finally decided in favor of Microsoft. Microsoft has won the judgment against Novell, as the judgment quoted that the Novell's alleged back in the 1996 agreement with Caldera, that the company had given up the right to sue Microsoft.
Whereas now, just on this Tuesday, another review appeal, at the appeals court once again reversed the previous judgment through a 2-1 majority decision. It is now being stated that the previous agreement, i.e. with Caldera in 1996, actually roofed some other products which are unrelated to the ones in this new lawsuit of Novell Inc. This new ruling now gives complete authority to Novell Inc. for pursuing their last remaining bumpy antitrust claim against Microsoft.
Any corresponding personality of Novell Inc. was not available to have any words on this particular case victory. Taking advantage of which, Microsoft has looked down on Novell Inc.'s claims stating that there are invalid and Microsoft’s next move will be considered soon. The spokesperson for Microsoft spoke saying that "We are disappointed with the Fourth's Circuit's decision ... although we are pleased that at this point only one part of one of Novell's claims remains." She went on and mentioned "We still are convinced that this lingering claim does not have any merit, and we are considering our next steps."
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