SALT LAKE CITY — Jurors in the billion-dollar Novell-Microsoft antitrust case are apparently wrestling with a number of questions, including what a “hung jury” means.

The seven-woman, seven-man jury was expected to continue deliberations Friday. Jurors have asked the court for several clarifications since receiving the case Wednesday morning. Twice it asked about the term hung jury, possibly signaling that might be on their minds as they weigh two months of complex testimony and hundreds of documents.

Attorneys for both sides wrapped up their cases Tuesday with closing arguments in U.S. District Court.

Novell alleges Microsoft violated antitrust laws during the development of Windows 95, putting the Provo-based company’s newly acquired WordPerfect word processing software at a competitive disadvantage and allowing Microsoft to gain a monopoly in the computer operating systems market.

Microsoft contends Novell bought a dying company in WordPerfect and was slow to recognize the emergence of Windows. It argued that delays in development of Novell’s spread sheet application slowed the release of its software for Windows 95.

Novell seeks as much as $1.3 billion in compensation. Microsoft says the Provo-based company deserves nothing…

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705395917/Jurors-in-Novell-Microsoft-case-ask-court-about-meaning-of-hung-jury.html

SALT LAKE CITY — Jurors deliberating Wednesday in a Utah company’s $1 billion federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. appeared confused, sending at least five questions to the judge, one of which couldn’t be answered.

Novell Inc. sued Microsoft in 2004, claiming the Redmond, Wash.-based technology giant duped it into developing a version of its WordPerfect writing program for Windows 95 only to pull the plug so Microsoft could gain market share with its own word program.

Jurors started deliberating at about 8:45 a.m. Wednesday and didn’t go home until about 7:45 p.m., the Salt Lake Tribune reported. They’ll resume their discussions Thursday…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/15/novell-microsoft-suit-jury_n_1150657.html

THE JURY is still deliberating to reach a verdict in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Novell against Microsoft, with a decision possibly due later today.

The lawsuit centres on allegations by Novell that Microsoft acted anti-competitively by asking it to develop a version of its word processor Wordperfect for the Windows 95 operating system and then making it impossible for Novell to meet that request to boost the market share of Microsoft Word.

Until the mid 1990s Novell’s Wordperfect application was the dominant word processor, so it’s not surprising that it is a little miffed that it lost out on the basis that Word had better integration with Windows 95. Microsoft, however, claims that Novell simply acted too late to develop a compatible version of Wordperfect and that was ultimately the cause of Novell’s loss of market share, which fell from around 50 per cent to less than 10 per cent…

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2133053/jury-deliberates-novell-microsoft-lawsuit