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Microsoft Files Cross Motion to Dismiss Novell's WordPerfect Antitrust Case; Novell Opposes - Updated

By Pamela Jones et al.

There are more filings in the Novell v. Microsoft antitrust case over WordPerfect. Many, many more, mainly exhibits, a total of about 2,540 pages. Some exhibits themselves run to nearly 200 pages, and Novell has 158 exhibits. So, what is happening?

Last time we looked in on this case, the parties had filed summary judgment motions. Now Microsoft has filed a cross motion asking the court to dismiss Novell's complaint, and Novell has filed a response in opposition. Very much at issue are exhibits in the Comes antitrust case against Microsoft. Believe it or not, no one had adequately set up a database system to be able to search through the exhibits efficiently. So Novell wanted Microsoft to look for what it was asking for in discovery, and Microsoft wanted Novell to have to do that. And the court didn't press Microsoft much. And so at the end of the day, there was no evidence on some key points that either party could find.

Groklaw is now working on such a searchable system, which we hope will be available in about a week's time, if all keeps going well, so you and I and the world can search the exhibits easily. It may be too late for this litigation, and there may not be any more relevant evidence to find -- how I wish I'd known there was this need earlier -- but now that we know, we are working on it and at least it will be in place for others. Anyway, while the database Microsoft has is more complete than the Comes materials made public in that litigation, we certainly can arrange what we have better than that, and we are just a bunch of volunteers. Capice?

If you look carefully, you will see that one of the emails [PDF] we posted on that last article is now referenced in Novell's Response as footnote 4 (I think the Hassid affidavit has transposed 4 and 5, by the way). It could be coincidence. But if not, this is surely worth doing. Anyway, it's what Groklaw was born for. It's Open Source, so many eyeballs make bugs shallow. If they belong to geeks, you can throw in some technology, and solutions are possible that law firms often can't achieve on their own. And yes, if it were the other side searching, I'd still do it, although I'd have some questions about the plausibility of such an expressed need in this case.

Full post as published by Groklaw on November 19, 2009 (boomark / email).