Microsoft still wants to buy Novell patents

Representatives of the CPTN Holdings consortium confirmed that their offer to purchase 882 Novell patents is still open, despite the company's German office having been liquidated. OSI filed a lawsuit against CPTN, which includes Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and EMC, accusing them of posing a threat to the development of open source software.

German antitrust authorities support OSI and announced they will investigate the matter. A few days after this announcement, news broke that all negotiations to acquire the rights to 882 Novell patents had been terminated, and CPTN's German representative office had been disbanded.

At the outset of negotiations, a proposal to acquire Novell's patents for $450 million was proposed. However, many active members of the Open Source Foundation warned that if Novell's patents were purchased, giants like Microsoft and Apple could undermine Linux. They also noted that Linux is actively developing and gaining more and more users in the mobile and server markets.

Microsoft says it still plans to acquire the patents, and CPTN still operates in the US as a limited liability company.