Apple. EMC, Microsoft, Oracle continue pursuit of Novell patents

“Open source advocates celebrating Web reports that a Microsoft-led consortium has withdrawn plans to buy hundreds of Novell patents will have to put the corks back in the champagne bottles,” Antone Gonsalves reports for InformationWeek. “Microsoft sent on Tuesday to InformationWeek and other news media a statement saying its withdrawals of the plan from German regulators was just a procedural matter. Bottom line: Nothing has changed.”

“The software maker’s response was to an earlier report from PC World that the consortium, called CPTN Holdings and formed by Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and EMC, had withdrawn its plan to buy more than 880 Novell patents for $450 million,” Gonsalves reports. “The Novell patents became available when the company agreed last November to be purchased by Attachmate for $2.2 billion. The transaction included sale of the patents to CPTN. Novell at the said it expected the sale of the company to be completed in the first quarter of this year.”

Full article here.