The judgement not only seriously undermined SCO’s case against Novell, but also casts a giant question mark over its long-running Linux-related copyright infringement case against IBM.

The court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights, Judge Dale Kimball wrote in his ruling.

He dismissed all the claims against Novell in SCO’s lawsuit that depended on SCO owning copyright over Unix, and the portions of other claims that relied on copyright ownership.

He also ruled that SCO owes Novell money, amount to be determined, from two Unix licensing pacts it signed with Microsoft and Sun Microsystems that were related to the case.

The court’s ruling has cut out the core of SCO’s case and, as a result, eliminates SCO’s threat to the Linux community based upon allegations of copyright infringement of UNIX, Novell general counsel Joe LaSala said in a statement. We are extremely pleased with the outcome.

In 2003, SCO sued IBM and Sequent, a company IBM had acquired, claiming IBM had misappropriated SCO’s intellectual property by donating Unix code to the Linux operating system.

It also sued Linux users including Daimler-Chrysler, and was briefly considered the most significant threat to enterprise adoption of the Linux operating system.

Novell became involved due to the fact that it had sold its Unix to SCO’s predecessor over a decade ago, and SCO was basing its claims against IBM on rights allegedly transferred in that deal.

With Friday’s ruling, Kimball has judged that SCO does not have the copyrights it claims it did, which undermines SCO’s position in both lawsuits.

Kimball also ruled that Novell is entitled, at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive its claims against IBM and Sequent, and SCO is obligated to recognize Novell’s waiver of SCO’s claims against IBM and Sequent.

In the SCO vs IBM case, Kimball said that significantly impacts the claims and counterclaims and requested that both parties submit statements before the end of the month.

The latest ruling, which could be the final nail in SCO’s legal coffin, came as a result of Novell’s December 2006 request for a summary judgement.

SCO did not respond to a request for comment by press time.