"SCO made its public statements claiming ownership of the Unix copyrights...with knowledge that title to these copyrights remains with Novell," Novell said in its filing. "SCO made such statements with the intent to cause customers and potential customers of Novell not to do business with Novell (and) to slander and impugn the ownership rights of Novell in Unix and UnixWare." The months-old legal dispute is a key foundation to two SCO court cases concerning proprietary Unix and open-source Linux, directed against IBM and car parts retailer AutoZone. If Novell can show it owns the Unix copyright, both those cases are seriously compromised. SCO, based in Lindon, Utah, said its lawyers are reviewing Novell's filing and that counterclaims aren't unexpected in such cases. It did not comment further.