There isn't any legal obligation for us to do what they wanted us to do," he said. Novell bought WordPerfect for $1.4 billion in 1994. It sold that program and Quattro Pro two years later for just $145 million. Houston-based Attachmate Group, a software holding company, bought Novell this past April for $2.2 billion. Novell again is based in Provo after being headquartered for a time in Waltham, Mass. Up to now, the lawsuit has been argued in Maryland where the federal court consolidated several other antitrust cases involving Microsoft. Because of that, U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz from Maryland will preside over the case in Utah. Novell filed the lawsuit less than a week after banking a $536 million settlement from Microsoft over antitrust complaints in Europe. Despite the ongoing lawsuit, Microsoft and Novell reached a collaboration agreement on Windows and Linux interoperability in 2006. Linux is a computer operating system based on free, open source software.