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More darts - SCO's opposition to Daubert hearings and to Chatlos, Michels testimony

By Pamela Jones et al.

Can you believe there's more? Five more, to be exact. SCO has filed two more oppositions to Novell's motions in limine, specifically their motion to exclude testimony from Ed Chatlos, Burt Levine, Kim Madsen, and Doug Michels, and they also filed their opposition to Novell's motions for Daubert hearings to disqualify SCO's experts Christine Botosan, Dr. Gary Pisano, and G. Gervaise Davis III.

This is SCO's side of the story, and they in essence say over and over that their experts are wonderfully qualified, and that their witnesses were cited by the appeals court, so they must be able to present their stories to the jury. It's true the appeals court did cite folks like Ed Chatlos, but it never mentioned he wasn't working for the company at the time the APA's Amendment 2 was signed. So did the appeals court make a mistake in not even addressing that issue? SCO claims that "at the time of the APA" Chatlos was the Novell Senior Director for UNIX Strategic Partnerships and Business Development. I wonder what they mean by "at the time". Maybe it's vague, like saying "in Noah's day".

I would like to see some substantiation that he was with the company when all the APA documents were signed. Since, as I mentioned in the previous article, the Novell board minutes [PDF] the day before it was signed explicitly say copyrights would not transfer, should he not have to be there at that very day and the next, when the APA was signed to have his testimony be relevant, particularly since the appeals court said the APA was not ambiguous, and it definitely excluded copyrights? I note the minutes tell us who attended that meeting, and no Ed Chatlos. If he was the lead negotiator, why wasn't he invited? I'm sure we'll hear more on this point eventually.

That's only part of why Novell would like to appeal their decision, of course, I would guess. Meanwhile, SCO is acting like the decision was written on stone tablets and brought down the mountain by Moses himself.

Full post as published by Groklaw on February 20, 2010 (boomark / email).