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AutoZone Files Answer to Complaint and Motion to Dismiss in Part

By Pamela Jones et al.

AutoZone has filed its answer [PDF] to SCO's complaint [PDF] and has filed a motion to dismiss in part [PDF] SCO's claims for actual damages, statutory damages and attorneys' fees. That means they would like to pare this thing down, to the degree possible right away, because that keeps expenses down. Discovery is the major expense of litigation, and the fewer issues there are, the less you spend. And it narrows a great deal what SCO could ever win from this litigation, even if it could prevail.

The Answer says none of SCO's legal rights have been violated, so SCO isn't entitled to *any* relief on its claims. And interestingly, AutoZone "denies that this Court has jurisdiction over SCO's claims related to UNIX System V and UnixWare" -- no doubt we'll be hearing more about this -- and "denies that this District is the most convenient forum as no relevant witnesses or documents are located in this District." So, I gather they are still interested in leaving Las Vegas and having the case heard elsewhere, like where AutoZone and all their witnesses are located.

And significantly, "AutoZone denies that Santa Cruz purchased the UNIX technology from Novell, Inc. or that SCO acquired this technology from Santa Cruz." So SCO will have to prove all that in this court of law, because AutoZone is directly challenging the chain of ownership. As for files like CompX and DecompX that AutoZone had, AutoZone doesn't know if it is true that SCO owns any proprietary code in them. Let SCO prove that too. In any case, even if they did, AutoZone's alleged use of any such code "is lawful use based on agreements and licenses with third-parties."

Full post as published by Groklaw on August 31, 2009 (boomark / email).