back to article SCO: jurors too busy Facebooking to rule on Unix claim

SCO Group wants a judge to overrule a jury that found it doesn’t own Unix. Or it wants a fresh trial. Either, really, as long as SCO gets the result it wants. The company’s filed papers with a US court saying the jury hearing its case over whether SCO owned the Unix copyright, and that found for Novell last month, was either …

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  1. jake Silver badge

    Isn't it about time ...

    ... for the next Judge in this matter to take SCO's lawyers aside and explain what kind of effect him/her smacking them with a Rule 11 "frivolous litigation" contempt charge would have on their career?

  2. Trevor Pott o_O Gold badge
    Happy

    Ahahahahahahahahahaha

    lol, SCO.

  3. OSC
    Linux

    And so it goes on

    While SCO bleeds into the sand trying to claim the unclaimable (let's not forget who paid $20 million for a "licence"), we have Microsoft back, champing at the bit over unspecified patent claims that might or might not be in Linux.

    (We can't possibly know because they won't tell anyone)

    Lawyers , intellectual property, US legal system - all good for innovation, growth and prosperity, then

    But the good news must surely be be that for copyright, at least, Linux must be cleaner than an operating theatre.

    Now all we need is a half-decent ruling on Bilski...

  4. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    Hey SCO

    You lost. Twice. Now shut the fuck up and sit down while we grown-ups work.

    1. Andy Enderby 1
      Happy

      @pirate dave - nit picking

      .....but true that you forgot one. They've lost summary judgement, the bench trial, and now the jury trial. That would make three times. And about two too many.

      But I happily agree with the sentiment in the rest of your post.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Got to admire those lawyers

    They will keep sucking the blood until the corpse is empty

    1. Charles Manning

      that's the whole point

      Remember that SCO lawyer, Kevin McBride, is Darl's brother. All SCO litigation was basically shoveling money from SCO into the McBride family.

      The job isn't done while there is still money to be had.

      While Darl might be gone from SCO, the case can still be kept going for a bit longer.

    2. Hollerith 1

      Lawyers don't initiate action

      If individuals and companies weren't so ready to take things to court, lawyers wouldn't ahve anything to do. Lawyers routinely advise against litigation (the good ones do) as it is always risky goign to court and far better to negotiate. Going to court isn't necessarily more remunative for lawyers and, as one side always loses, lawyers aren't hungry to line up to be the losing team.

      Yes, lawyers beenfit from bloody-minded clients, but so does Kinko and taxi drivers and court clerks and so on. But it's the fact that companies and individuals call lawyers to help them seek redress; lawyers don't foment companies to do this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Alien

        RE: lawyers aren't hungry to line up to be the losing team.

        You'd think lawyers would look at a case provide advice and sometimes say they aren't going to get involved in an obvious failure - I guess the good ones will anyway

      2. Stevie

        Bah!

        Then why am I bombarded morning, noon and night by commercials on TV, radio, billboard and now even the bleeding *outside* of the subway cars for various liability law attorneys?

        It was lawyers that coined the phrase "billable hours" for Azathoth's sake.

        So long as the bills are paid (and someone must be paying SCO's lawyers or they would fold their tents in an eyeblink) a Lawyer will hang on like a lamprey with separation anxiety issues. If you can't think up a reason to continue litigating, they will.

        "Going to court isn't necessarily more remun[er]ative for lawyers"? Only if they're doing it wrong.

  6. Bill B
    Alien

    Good God .. are they mad????

    If a retrial is ordered on the basis that "the jury didn't understand the evidence" then it opens the door for ANY trial (criminal or otherwise) to be re-ordered on the same basis.

    Surely even SCO don't believe that this request is going to be granted? Have their lawyers got them by some sensitive part of their anatomy, because the only winner here is the lawyers.

    Aliens because I think SCO has been taken over by them.

  7. ElReg!comments!Pierre
    Coat

    Preposterous claim

    Everyone knows that the rightful owner of UNIX (and, incidentally, Linux) is Microsoft.

    Ta-Dzimmm!

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    If this is Utah Family Guy soap opera is over...

    ...before the whole of the US collapses, defederalizes and is taken over by hordes of immigrant narco-crazed illegal laborers, robot-predator-fleeing sand denizens and wide-eyed socialist canadians, with only small island of fascist regimes surviving in the vast inner territories of the defunt USA, I will be surprised.

  9. AceBitbucket
    Jobs Horns

    The Saga Continues....

    Isn't it amazing that everybody in all of the known multiverses--and, some that are not known--has managed to look at all of the same evidence and yet can't get to the same conclusion as SCO? Gosh, we all must be facebooking. Or, not.

  10. hplasm
    Terminator

    Destroy SCO with fire.

    The stake is not enough. Off with the head and then burn the corpse.

    Or they will keep coming back.

  11. zenkaon
    FAIL

    Let me be (one of) the first to say

    fcuk off and die already SCO.

  12. Neoc

    <whirble, whirble, wharble>

    ...and so it continues... <whirble>

  13. ratfox
    WTF?

    Incredible

    - No

    - We want a bench trial!

    - No

    - We want a jury!

    - No

    - We want another jury... or a bench trial again... anything!

    - What *** part of NO don't you understand??

    SCO should get a soap opera award.

  14. Tuomo Stauffer
    Pirate

    I love this

    So - if they are granted their wish (by some fairy?) so I can do whatever and always (forever, next 200 years) get a new "court day" just because the previous jury was too stupid, not really didn't understand my side (whatever it was!) or maybe they were not the right color or maybet they were watching Simpson in smartphone?

    Well - as far as I know, it really could happen in USA (not in America, that's another story!)

  15. Stewart Stevens
    FAIL

    Who are the movers and shakers at SCO?

    SCO has been in the stocks for the last decade. So many rotten eggs and cabbages have been thrown that SCO is now just a big pile of putrid rotting detritus.

    We need fresh targets. Has anyone got a good link to who is pulling the strings at SCO?

  16. Tom Kelsall
    Coat

    This is the title, right here...

    SCO need to REALLY take a reality check. They lost twice and then asked for a Jury ruling and lost again. Really, how much more simple could it be made for them? Did they think that the first two Judges were too busy facebooking too??!

    A request for this kind of thing in the UK could easily be perceived as stepping the wrong side of Contempt Law.

  17. fred #257
    FAIL

    LOSERS

    They've got this 'overwhelming' case and yet they've managed to lose *every single time*. What does that say about their lawyers?

    (But then, SCO lost the moment IBM decided not to buy them off for nuisance value)

    It'll make a good book one day. If it comes out before I die of old age.

    1. Quirkafleeg
      Happy

      Overwhelming?

      Certainly. Just not in the way which they'd prefer…

  18. BongoJoe

    Er...

    Why can't Betty from Procurements just go to her battered filing cabinet and produce a reciept which declares "Purchased - one copyright of Unix" and fax it to the judge?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Farcebook

    "Yes, they were probably Facebooking on their iPhones, or something"

    At least they were not surveying the Adult Video Culture as the SEC did during the meltdown.

  20. Lars Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Go to hell

    Mcbribe

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Maybe, just maybe....

    SCO's lawyers are working on a contingency basis....so they're not going to get paid unless they win...

    1. Jonathan Richards 1

      ...once upon a time

      Once upon a time, Boies Schiller & Flexner were retained on something like that basis: they got paid in stock and a share of the booty. For some reason, which I don't rightly recall, they changed that, and now they're working on the basis that they're fully paid up, for however long the case takes. Oh, except for expenses, of course...

    2. paulc

      already been paid

      they've already been paid... they're now being held to their contract to pursue this through all legal angles...

  22. Cyfaill
    Linux

    SCO Group - Sick Company Organized Greed

    Follow the money... it leads northwest of Utah. North of Oregon, South of Canada.

    Any normally funded exercise in corruption such as this would have sunk after two just torpedo's from the law... Does it not beg the question of what force above the law is at work here. For the sake of humanity, throw the SCO ring into the fires of Mount Doom.

    Watch as the tower of SCO Group finally at long last falls... and if that happens maybe the other one will micro softly suffer some.

  23. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Jobs Horns

    SCO Can't quite

    They hyperactive turkey who pays the piper

    calls the tune.

    1. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Errrrm...

      Syntax error?

  24. Tim Bates

    My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

    I checked - It's not April 1.

    How stupid are SCO? And how bloody dare they make comments about the jury's ability to make decisions when clearly they can't themselves!

  25. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Is Facebook really anything whatsoever to do with this story

    other than in your own mind?

  26. g e

    I used to have a stapler

    with RAPESCO printed on it, what a great company name.

    If only...

  27. K
    Headmaster

    In the words of my favorite teacher...

    DIE DIE DIE...

    SCO v Novel now have so many sequals, if it was a movie, it's be more B rate than friday the 13th

  28. kain preacher

    @Tuomo Stauffer

    "Well - as far as I know, it really could happen in USA (not in America, that's another story!)"

    Um explain how this could happen in America?

  29. Pet Peeve
    Linux

    Nothing new

    This is standard procedure when a jury verdict goes against you. They went against you, therefore they must be totally incompetent - motion to vacate!

    If there was jury misconduct, or on-the-record observations that the jury was playing bubble bobble on their linux laptops during the trial, they might have good grounds. But ... no.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Jury trumps judge...

    The decision of the jury overrides the decision of the judge, the judge can not overrule a jury. One must understand that SCO would not be questioning the Jury's decision if they had ruled in their favour. SCO is like a bully-child who had the toy that they tried to steal returned to its rightful owner.

  31. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Technically I think the judge can overrule a jury.

    At least in ancient English law, but maybe not if European human-rights legislation has changed this - but the jury evolved from, well, look it up.

    1. ZimboKraut
      Linux

      RE: Technically I think the judge can overrule a jury.

      not only technically....

      A judge can overule the jury, BUT...

      The cases where it has happened are few and far between....

      Any judge who does that, has to have a whiter than white vest, since he/she will be investigated and torn into little bits and pieces and finally put under an electron microscope.

      there have to be really very, very, very, good grounds to warrant an overruling.

      Ususally the judge would rather make it a mistrial, than overrule a jury. but on the other hand, if he were to deem it a mistrial, he/she has to have just as good reasons....

      So I would suggest, the request, will kindly be declined.

      But as some others have already pointed out.... nothing is impossible in the US of A...s ;-)

      Best regards

  32. kain preacher

    Robert Carnegie

    its rare but yes the judge can override the jury, but only to find not guilty , or liable but there better be some damn good evidence. Like jury tampering, with holding evidence , But saying the jury is to stupid is not a valid legal reason.

  33. Keith Doyle

    Consistent with only one thing...

    Obviously, the lawyers are getting paid by the delay, and nothing else. Possibly somewhere down the road, Microsoft promised to pay them for every minute they can stall, and they're ideas for keeping that up are now getting so thin it would seem the only place they can go after this is to outright contempt of court-- as they've tried everything else by now, most of which has already danced out to the edge of contempt...

  34. Robert Heffernan
    Joke

    "Second Jury Ruling"

    Jury: "We the jury, find in favor of the SCO Group, we find that they do indeed own all assets of the Unix operating system"

    SCO: "Holy Shit! We Won!!!"

    Jury: "No, we're kidding, what part of YOU DON'T OWN IT do you not understand!"

  35. Fatman
    FAIL

    Time for a public flogging

    I think Judge Kimball should order the officers of SCO and their lawyers to appear in front of the Federal Courthouse for a public flogging session. Each one of them should be flogged one hour each day, for each day this case has dragged on.

    Should Judge Kimball make such an order, I have some ratty old cat 5 cables that I would be pleased to donate for this worthy cause. Should Judge Kimball need qualified applicants to perform this worthy public service, I am quite willing to put forward my resume.

  36. This post has been deleted by its author

  37. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Flame

    I would seem this will only end

    If *all* the staff of SCO *and* their legal team are found in the trunks of various cars with a couple of bullets in their heads, probably around New Jersey.*

    *Not that I advocate assassination as a reasonable business tool.

  38. Gil Grissum
    Grenade

    Time for this to end

    It's time for a judge to put the nails in the coffin and stop this travesty of justice. They lost with both a judge and a jury trial. It's time to end it. Novel owns the Unix copywrites, SCO doesn't and now IBM, Redhat, and world plus dog can sue them and put them out of their misery.

  39. delaneya
    Alert

    http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/04/29/sco_judge_trial_jury/

    Dont these people every give up. Talk about flogging a dead horse.

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