Novell has brought to light their patent, business and technology agreements with Microsoft. Although this is only a partial public offering, it does shed some clues on the present situations as of late with all the recent patent rumblings:

If the final version of GPLv3 contains terms or conditions that interfere with our agreement with Microsoft or our ability to distribute GPLv3 code, Microsoft may cease to distribute SUSE Linux coupons in order to avoid the extension of its patent covenants to a broader range of GPLv3 software recipients, we may need to modify our relationship with Microsoft under less advantageous terms than our current agreement, or we may be restricted in our ability to include GPLv3 code in our products, any of which could adversely affect our business and our operating results. In such a case, we would likely explore alternatives to remedy the conflict, but there is no assurance that we would be successful in these efforts.

So now it's even more obvious why Microsoft has been throwing around the "235 patents infringed by open source" claim. Novell is confirming that Microsoft may have to stop distributing SuSE Linux coupons if the Free Software Foundation's General Public License (GPL) version 3 goes through with the current patent language in place.