On Tuesday 14 November 2006 17:21, Anders Johansson wrote:
Q5. Novell's November 2 press release states that, "Novell will also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its revenues from open source products." Are these payments for a patent license to Novell? No. Novell has no license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft under this agreement. The payments are for Microsoft's covenant directly to Novell's customers. ***By the same token, Microsoft's customers receive the same covenant from Novell in return for payment from Microsoft to Novell.***
Don' t you find it ODD that microsoft never mentioned that last bit? Why would two companies agree to exchange huge sums of money unless ONE OR THE OTHER was actually infringing? If one wanted to hazard a guess as to which party WAS infringing it would be he who pays the most, with the counter-payments just a smoke screen. Why not start with a simple statement that there IS no infringement and forget the money till there IS infringement? -- _____________________________________ John Andersen