What the Judge Still Has to Decide in SCO v. Novell
By Anonymous
April 19 2010
That leaves unspoken the answer to whether that means the jury thought it was not the intention of the APA that the copyrights transfer, but I believe that is what they meant. If they thought the copyrights were supposed to transfer, they would have answered that question with a yes. But does Judge Stewart agree?
I was on the jury. In deliberations we agreed that the APA could have transferred
some of the copyright rights without necessarily transferring ownership. We agreed
that the written contract was the best indicator of the parties intent.
It seemed clear that the intent of the deal was for Santa Cruz to develop UNIXWare,
and that they would own any copyrights associated with the new development.
It was also clear that Novell intended to reserve some of the copyright rights
to itself, which is how it could expect direct Santa Cruz/SCO how to act with regards
to the licenses that produced the revenue stream.
A number of confusing
points remained: Frankenburg's testimony that (C) transferred; The board minutes
stating they did not; the written contract being the best indicator of the parties
intent at the time of the deal; Tor's testimony that (C) were withheld; no testimony
from Santa Cruz's lawyers from the APA negotiation; Santa Cruz/SCO doing business
until 2003 without the (C) being an issue; Sabbath vs. Amadia in negotiation of
A2 (Sabbaths' clerical error vs. Amadia not being authorized to change APA); Why
A2 changed only schedule 1.1b and not 1.1a if the intent was to include copyrights;
why A2 was so vague as to which rights were required for Santa Cruz to operate;
why no one noticed during the review period that (C) were excluded in 1.1b.
The evidence seemed to work out to a tie, and per the instructions we had to
find in favor of Novell. We did agree that it was possible for Novell to assign
all of the rights of copyright without transferring ownership.
01:11 PM EDT
What the Judge Still Has to Decide in SCO v. Novell
By SpaceLifeForm
April 19 2010
Congratulations on sorting through the mess so quickly.
Did you ever get the feeling that the tSCOG lawyers
were trying to confuse
you and the rest of the jury?
---
You are being MICROattacked, from
various angles, in a SOFT manner.
02:10 PM EDT
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Evidence came out to a tie?
By cpeterson
April 19 2010
In that case, I would have expected more deliberation.
With all due respect,
I am somewhat dubious of this report.
04:51 PM EDT
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This point *must* influence Judge Stewart
By dmarker
April 19 2010
>>
It was also clear that Novell intended to reserve some of the copyright
rights
to itself, which is how it could expect direct Santa Cruz/SCO how to act
with
regards to the licenses that produced the revenue stream.
<<
This is surely a fundamental understanding.
We now have tSCOg behaving
badly in regard to the revenue stream - this proving
the worth and necessity
of Novell's lawyers needing to include such protection
in the contracts. It surely
shoots down tSCOg's logic and completely undermines
their claim for specific
performance.
DSM
09:04 PM EDT
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Definition of "tie"
By bugstomper
April 19 2010
I'm only
guessing, and the anonymous juror might come back here and clarify, but
it seems
to me that if the jury got to the point of deciding that SCO's evidence
did not
prove Novell's witnesses and evidence to be false they could return a
verdict
for Novell without having to decide if any of Novell's evidence proved
any of
SCO's witnesses and evidence to be false.
Why deliberate any longer once
they have decided that Novell achieved at least a
tie?
09:09 PM EDT
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Get out of here!
By webster
April 19 2010
[This comment is based on the tenuous presumption that an actual juror did post
here.]
Anything you say can be used against you or your verdict. People
who loose
verdicts use anything they can to attack that verdict, and get off
or win a new
trial. Although jury verdicts are hard to attack, whatever you say
will be
used.
Your mere posting here will be used. They will try and see
if you violated
court orders by clicking on Groklaw. Erase your browser histories.
They will
also cross-check your every answer on voir dire to see if you may have
hid some
bias and unduly influenced your fellow jurors. Indeed it seems by your
explanation above and the length of time of deliberations that you absorbed a
mass of evidence, organized it and articulated it for the jury whose sentiments
were already leaning as you saw it.
Many here agree with the verdict and
don't wish to feed a fertile line of
attack. So "Anonymous Juror" get out; "anonymous"
is just
fine. I suggest you refuse to talk to any investigators or lawyers that
come
around. Don't sign anything. Every time you say something it can be compared
to another time you said something. This can produce discrepancies,
contradictions,
lies even...!
~webster~
09:29 PM EDT
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What the Judge Still Has to Decide in SCO v. Novell
By Anonymous
April 20 2010
No. It would have done SCO no good to confuse the us because
that would have
hurt them in demonstrating a preponderance of evidence. Theirs
was the burden to
tip the scale in their favor.
If anything they were
trying to be absolutely clear that the intent was to
transfer the copyrights
and that the exclusion of (C) in 1.1b was simply an
oversight - albeit an oversight
by many, many people. In the instructions we
were told that we could consider
the parties' intent to clarify the contract if
it was unclear.
The biggest
problem SCO faced was not demonstrating Santa Cruz's intent during
the writing
of the APA (except for a line or two from a lawsuit in Germany where
the same
lawyers for Santa Cruz asserted SCO owned the (C)).
Prior to the APA negotiations
it's clear that everything was to transfer,
including copyrights, and after the
APA both parties acted as if they received
what they expected - Santa Cruz tried
to develop UNIXWare further and Novell
received royalties for SVRX and directed
Santa Cruz/SCO how to act with regards
to those licenses.
Without that
piece - the intent of the parties as they drafted the APA - all we
had to rely
on was the APA itself. Since both parties participated in the
drafting, it's
probable that the lawyers for Santa Cruz agreed to the exclusion
(Tor Brahm testified
as much, that when (C) were brought up it wasn't given
much notice, as if it
weren't unusual).
Also Santa Cruz's officers said they would have noticed
if (C) were excluded,
but none of them read the agreement - Doug Michaels' testimony
was a hilarious
illustration of that point - or they assumed that the (C) meant
the Netware
copyrights. That assumption (which Frankenburg shared) seemed pretty
shallow
because each itemization of included/excluded assets was very specific
as to
what it was referring. Why assume the same for 1.1b V?
So it appeared
that the deal changed, or it was very probably that it did, and
that the lawyers
for both sides drafted an agreement to reflect the intent of
each side.
SCO had to be very clear to tip the scale in their favor. They could not afford
to confuse the us.
02:52 AM EDT
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Definition of "tie"
By Anonymous
April 20 2010
Well, there
were twelve of us, and we each picked up on different points of
evidence. Most
of the deliberation was spent trying to work out how we could
come to a unanimous
agreement. Do you know how hard that is?
One juror wanted to stand on the
signed, un-amended APA alone (he never budged,
BTW - it wasn't me). Another juror
thought Santa Cruz couldn't develop UNIXWare
without (C) ownership. Another thought
that perhaps Novell was selling for a low
price to cut their losses and run.
Another juror spent time trying to convince
us that SCO received an exclusive,
implied license to UNIXWare. Other jurors saw
"big-bad Novell" beating up on
"little old SCO."
And, we did not have all the information that is posted
here. From my
observation, Judge Stewart was doing everything he could to make
sure that we
were free from bias and that we remained impartial, and frankly
(no offense
intended) some of the info here is kind of inflammatory, and would
have hindered
us in reaching a decision.
Ultimately, on Tuesday, we sat
down and read through the instructions and the
law again. We knew that we were
to be the finders of fact. So we took the
evidence piece by piece and determined
how much weight, if you will, each piece
added to the scales. Ultimately, we
couldn't tip the scales either way because
of the questions we couldn't resolve
against the other.
The instructions said if we couldn't determine SCO had
proved a preponderance of
evidence (i.e. make the scales tip ever so slightly
in their favor) we must find
for the defendant.
And we did.
Once
we checked the "no" box, we were done.
And, you can have Chris (I think he
was there) go ask Dino at the Royal Eatery
what the two favorite orders of the
jury were, if you need confirmation. Answer,
Mountain Dew and onion rings.
I came here because this is the only place I could find that is following the
case, and I want to see how it turns out.
And, PJ, to confirm, I had never
visited Groklaw until after the trial.
03:20 AM EDT
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This point *must* influence Judge Stewart
By Anonymous
April 20
2010
Well, from the jury's point of view, we could only look at 4.16 to determine
the
intent of the parties, and 4.16 showed us (the jury) that Novell intended
to
reserve some part of the (C) to itself.
I think the actuality of 4.16
is still before Judge Stewart.
03:23 AM EDT
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Definition of "tie"
By ChrisP
April 20 2010
Anonymous Juror,
Much as I enjoy reading your insights into the jury deliberations, you really
should take Webster's advice (he's a lawyer by the way) and "Get out of
here".
Delete your browser history and anything else on your computer to do with
Groklaw.
Refuse to speak to anyone from now on about the jury deliberations.
This
includes friends, investigators, lawyers, reporters etc.
Don't sign
anything.
---
SCO^WM$^WIBM^W, oh bother, no-one paid me to say this.
09:18 AM EDT
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