<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <h2 class="article-intro-text">As Microsoft-led consortium sweeps up 882 Novell patents.</h2> <div class="article-gallery-embed"> </div> <p>Microsoft's intellectual property vault has been bolstered with some 882 more software patents after open source vendor <a target="_blank" href="http://www.novell.com/home/">Novell</a> was acquired for US$2.2 billion (AU$2.2 billion) late yesterday.<br> </p> <p><br> </p> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.itnews.com.au/News/239447,novell-sold-for-22-billion.aspx">http://www.itnews.com.au/News/239447,novell-sold-for-22-billion.aspx</a><br> <br> <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- Attorney: Doctor, do you recall the time that you examined the body? Witness: The autopsy started at 2030 hours. Attorney: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time? Witness: If not, he was by the time I finished. </pre> </body> </html>