Microsoft and other members of the CPTN Holdings group that is attempting to acquire more than 800 Novell patents are altering their original agreements to head off potential antitrust concerns, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 20.



From ZDNet:

Last November, Seattle-based Attachmate Corp. announced plans to buy Novell for $2.2 billion. At the same time, Novell announced the “concurrent sale of certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation, for $450 million in cash.” Microsoft officials originally refused to divulge which other companies were part of CPTN, but it came to light that the CPTN group also included Apple, EMC and Oracle.

  Microsoft-backed CPTN alters Novell patent acquisition terms to appease antitrust authorities