We may have thought, hoped, and dreamed that Apple’s suit against clonemaker Psystar was the end of the story, but the battle will apparently continue in the courtroom this fall. Psystar has retained the services of Silicon Valley law firm Carr & Ferrell to defend its honor.
Heading up Psystar’s crack legal team is Carr & Ferrell partner Robert Yorio (pictured), who’s actually taken on Cupertino before in the case of Burst.com v. Apple, where the aforementioned sued Apple for violating its streaming media patents—the case ended with a settlement that saw Apple shell out $10 million to Burst.com. Yorio also oversaw a similar case that ended with a $60 million settlement from Microsoft, a patent infringement case against Iomega and Adaptec, and—perhaps most notably—a case against LEGO for the containers used in their Bionicle line.
Yorio’s biggest obstacle will be finding a way around Apple’s EULA, which prohibits installing OS X onto non-Apple branded computers. We’d think it’s a losing battle, but if Psystar somehow manages to eke out a win, this could change the landscape of the desktop market. A formal response from Psystar is due in August, at which point, we shall get ready to rumble.
[via InformationWeek]
Apple's lawsuit againts Psystar is based on copyrights and trademarks. I don't think Apple will try to use the EULA in this case.
* The EULA is an END USER license agreement, Psystar is not the end user so the EULA does not apply. Apple will probably demonstrate that Psystar failed to acquire a reseller contract and therefor is not entitled to sell Apple products
* As I understood from earlier posting Psystar has redistributed changed Apple software this is violation of copyright law that is relatively easy to prove. Expect Apple to demand Psystar to hand over the source code to any changed binaries during discovery.
* Psystar uses Apple trademarks in its publications numerous times without properly accrediting Apple, expect to see Apple point this out during their exposition. These are again relatively easy to prove violations of the related laws.
If Apple succeeds in proving even only one of those it will probably be enough to bankrupt Psystar. I am not sure if a jury will order Psystar to recall the products, since that's where customers get involved.
However, I'm surprised that Mac publications in general are very negative about Psystar and seem to wish them to loose. If Psystar would win, this would probably influence the Mac landscape favourably in a very short time.
Maybe this law firm can also represent that other 'clone' maker, but then there is no way to contact them.
this is so cool, a legal challenge to see if it's within Apple's corporate right to define the execution parameters of their OS software (outside of Apple's branded systems). I definitely think these waters need to be tested and Apple does need to be kept on its toes, as in the end the consumer benefits from a more open system and company.
If Apple had a Microsoftian market share of 90% or so I'd root for Psystar, but I don't think the Mac benefits from a more "open system." Look at the Win-dohs world. I think the one reason the Mac performs so well is that Apple controls the experience from box to OS. I remember a friend--a computer software tester and a coder (so no tech slouch) who spent over a year trying to get a newly installed CD drive to work with his PC (a major brand, BTW, not some off-market POS). He finally gave up and the drive gathered dust. The benefit of 1001 flavors of PC.