Novell wins order to keep the Wolf from the door

Novell has won the first stage in its legal battle with the Wolf Mountain Group, a breakaway company set up by two senior engineers, after the networking giant won a restraining order.

Two senior engineers involved with Novell?s Wolf Mountain clustering technology spun off a separate company to work on the development last month (PC Dealer, 30 April).

But the Wolf Mountain Group was issued with a temporary restraining order, preventing it from using any Novell assets or proprietary information. It has also been prevented from using the ?Wolf Mountain? name until further hearings can be held.

The restraining order was awarded by the fourth district court of Utah after Novell slapped a lawsuit on its former employees, Jeff Merkey and Darren Major, and on current Novell engineer Larry Angus last week.

Novell claimed the individuals had breached their contracts and fiduciary duty, misappropriated trade secrets and infringed trademarks.

The court has also prohibited the Wolf Mountain Group, which is working on multivendor clustering software, from misappropriating Novell?s proprietary information and trade secrets, including clustering technology, software program code, and related information.

The restraining order also prevents the Wolf Mountain Group from ?interfering with Novell?s contractual relationships with its current employees,? making poaching of staff more difficult.