This just wasn't SCO's day. Their 'slander of title' lawsuit against Novell was dismissed. They have 30 days to see if they can come up with a better complaint. They also lost their motion to separate the IBM counterclaims regarding patent infringement from the rest of that lawsuit.The ruling on the Novell suit also an included a denial of SCO's motion to remand the case back to state court. That is a bigger deal than it sounds, because in order to rule that way, the judge had to conclude that the issue of whether SCO owns any copyrights -- or whether Novell still owns them -- is up in the air and presents a Federal question, to wit whether the Asset Purchase Agreement together with Amendment 2 constitutute a "Section 204 writing" transferring copyrights. This means that IBM, Red Hat, and Autozone now have a judge's ruling that SCO's ownership of the UNIX copyrights is unclear and in dispute.
Many people think SCO will choose to pass on the judge's offer to re-file within 30 days, and instead accept the dismissal. They have already lost this lawsuit, because a win on Slander of Title requires malice, and there can't be malice where the title is in fact in dispute. What the judge is really offering them is a chance to settle the "who owns the copyrights" issue now, as opposed to waiting for a separate suit specifically over that issue.