The case hinged upon the interpretation of asset-transfer agreements governing Novell's sale of their Unix business to one of SCO's predecessor companies, the Santa Cruz Operation.

The original APA explicitly excluded all copyrights from the assets transferred from Novell to the Santa Cruz Operation.

On September 19, 1995, Novell entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) with the Santa Cruz Operation, a Unix vendor.

It also required the Santa Cruz Operation to act as Novell's agent for the collection for certain royalties due under such licenses.

In 2000, Caldera Systems acquired the Server Software and Services divisions of the Santa Cruz Operation, as well as the UnixWare and OpenServer Unix technologies.

[3] On June 6, 2003, SCO held a press conference in which it revealed a second amendment to the "asset purchase agreement between Novell and Santa Cruz Operation".

[4] After the registrations became public knowledge, Novell issued a press release on December 22, 2003, stating: Novell believes it owns the copyrights in Unix, and has applied for and received copyright registrations pertaining to Unix consistent with that position.

[5] SCO immediately responded with a press release reiterating its earlier claim, and announcing that it was preparing to file a lawsuit against Novell.

Additionally, SCO filed a motion to remand the case back to State court.

The case was dismissed without prejudice, which allowed SCO to amend their complaint to include properly pleaded special damages.

Novell also asked the court to attach SCO's assets pending adjudication of their claims.

SCO filed a second amended complaint on February 6, 2006, containing the original slander of title claim as well as several new claims, including unfair competition, copyright infringement (for Novell's distribution of SUSE Linux), and breaching a purported non-compete agreement (again, related to SUSE Linux).

[11] On April 10, 2006, Novell's SuSE division (a European vendor of Linux operating systems) filed a request for arbitration against SCO with the Secretariat of the International Chamber of Commerce's International Court of Arbitration in Paris, France.

Years earlier, while still known as Caldera International, SCO had signed contracts with then-independent SuSE, among others, involving the United Linux product.

Through discovery, Novell had obtained copies of SCO's Unix licensing agreements with Microsoft and Sun.

Novell filed a motion on September 29, 2006, asking for summary judgment, or if that was rejected, then for a preliminary injunction.

SCO was instructed to account for, and pass to Novell, an appropriate portion of its income from the Sun and Microsoft licenses.

"[13] The parties were expected to go to trial on September 17, 2007, in order to determine exactly how much money SCO owed Novell.

The filing caused all pending litigation to be automatically stayed as required by the United States Code.

On July 16, 2008, the Utah court awarded ...Defendant and Counterclaimant Novell $2,547,817 on its Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Claims for Unjust Enrichment, Breach of Fiduciary Duty, and Conversion.

[16]The decision, which SCO could appeal, granted Novell the asked-for $2,547,817 award due to the 2003 Sun Agreement's modification of the 1994 confidentiality provisions.

[18] Novell filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on March 4, 2010, seeking intervention by the Supreme Court of the United States.

[20] The jury trial on the remanded copyright issues began on March 8, 2010, before Judge Ted Stewart.