Novell-Microsoft Antitrust Suit Moves Forward

An appeals court ruled Monday that two remaining antitrust claims brought against Microsoft by Novell could go forward, upholding an earlier court decision that dismissed the company's other four claims.

Novell had originally sued Microsoft in November 2004 for monopolistic behavior in the productivity software market, which prevented it from selling its WordPerfect word processing and Quattro Pro spreadsheet applications from 1994 to 1996.

The software company gained the rights to WordPerfect following a merger with the WordPerfect Corporation and Quattro Pro from Borland. However, two years later it sold both programs to Corel for $170 million USD.

Lower courts agreed that the statute of limitations on Novell's suit had expired, and that was the primary reason for dismissing much of the company's case. However, two generic claims were allowed to stand.

First, Microsoft is accused of obtaining a monopoly through anticompetitive conduct in the Intel operating systems market. Second, it is accused of entering into exclusionary agreements which unreasonably restricted trade of competitor's products.

While pleased with the court's decision, Novell has not yet decided whether to press forward with a case or look to settle. The two sides had already settled over operating system questions for $536 million USD, however they were not able to agree to terms regarding WordPerfect.