SCO v. Novell went to the jury today. Judge Ted Stewart said, after the jury left to begin to deliberate, that in all his years on the bench, he's never seen such fine lawyering as in this case. Chris Brown reports that the jury says they will not reach a verdict by today:I've just received word that the jury does not expect to be done by 5pm (it was 4:30 when I got the call, it's 4:45 now).

Novell Inc. lied about owning the copyrights for the Unix computer operating system then collaborated with IBM to damage Unix owner The SCO Group, the latter's attorney told a federal court jury Tuesday.

Chris Brown's first report of the day is in, filed by phone during an extended break in the court session. The jury got to hear today about Judge Dale Kimball's earlier court rulings. We have all the important rulings in a new, special section on Groklaw's Novell Timeline page, so you can follow along.

Novell has moved to quell growing concerns that it has sold Linux out to Microsoft as part of its Attachmate deal. On Wednesday, Novell chief marketing officer John Dragoon issued a short statement saying that Novell – not Microsoft – owns the copyrights on Unix.

The Honorable Dale Kimball has now ruled: there will be no jury at the trial of SCO v. Novell. He granted Novell's motion on that. He will hear it himself.

The parties in SCO v. Novell have, as promised, filed their proposed jury instructions. And Novell has filed a new motion regarding letting the jury know about prior court rulings. SCO has, Novell says, once again crossed the line, despite the court's admonition not to do so. In its examination of Dr.

Today at the SCO v. Novell trial, Novell called Gregory Jones, and then SCO called Jack Messman as a hostile witness. His deposition was played in part earlier, but this was Mr. Messman testifying live. Finally the Michael DeFazio deposition video was played. Only two more days, and then it goes to the jury.

Our reporter from the courtroom in the SCO v. Novell jury trial, Chris Brown, has now filed his first report for today, which I'll add to as his further reports arrive.

The parties are still going back and forth over pre-trial issues, specifically over the jury instructions and the verdict form. We may see even more on this, because jury instruction and the verdict form come at the very end, so there is still time to try to get it just right. Not that either side will be entirely happy with the result.