Would-be Mac cloner Psystar may escalate fight with Apple to Supreme Court

“A U.S. appellate court this week rejected an appeal by Mac clone maker Psystar in a long-running case related to copyright infringement of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “But Psystar’s lawyer said he will continue the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. ‘This is far from over,’ K.A.D. Camera of the Houston firm Camera & Sibley LLP, who represents Psystar, said in an interview today.”

“In a ruling Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit confirmed a lower court’s late-2009 permanent injunction against Florida-based Psystar that prevented the company from copying, using or selling Mac OS X, and blocked it from selling any system with Apple’s operating system preinstalled,” Keizer reports. “In an opinion issued Wednesday, Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder affirmed the lower court’s injunction.”

Keizer reports, “Psystar will either ask the Ninth Circuit to consider the appeal en banc — a request that all the judges on that bench review the case, not just the three-judge panel whose opinion was written by Schroeder – or it will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case… Camera declined to comment when asked whether others besides Psystar are involved with the case. ‘I can’t answer that question,’ he said, ‘but I am not representing Dell.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Like a really bad movie, this one never seems to end.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]

Related articles:
Judge hammers final nail in Psystar’s coffin, awards Apple key win against Psystar over Mac clones – September 29, 2011
Psystar files legal reply brief in response to Apple – July 29, 2010
Apple v. Psystar: Psystar files opening brief in appeal – May 18, 2010
Psystar files appeal against Apple win – January 18, 2010
Erstwhile ‘Mac cloner’ Psystar halts sales of Rebel EFI Mac cloning tool, will peddle Linux PCs – December 28, 2009
Lawyer: Erstwhile ‘Mac cloner’ Psystar not shutting down – December 20, 2009
Erstwhile ‘Mac cloner’ Psystar pulls plug; ‘shutting things down immediately’ – December 18, 2009
Apple wins permanent injunction against would-be ‘Mac cloner’ Psystar – December 15, 2009
With authorized Mac clones dead, Apple looks to kill off Psystar’s ‘Rebel EFI’ – December 03, 2009
BusinessWeek’s Burrows: Psystar shouldn’t have messed with Apple – December 02, 2009
Psystar agrees to pay Apple $2.7 million settlement over unauthorized Mac cloning – December 01, 2009
Apple, Psystar reach partial settlement to cease sales of unauthorized Mac clones – December 01, 2009
Apple moves to kill second Psystar lawsuit – November 30, 2009
Failure to launch: Would-be ‘Mac cloner’ Psystar sold just 768 PCs with Apple’s Mac OS X installed – November 26, 2009
Apple seeks to grind illegal Mac cloner Psystar into fine silicon dust – November 25, 2009

40 Comments

  1. I’d really love to know how a small computer builder is raising the case for all these protracted legal battles. Is the law firm working for free, or is another interested party footing the bill?

        1. Yes, lawyers like those cockroaches Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow, etc. I’m glad you know what’s good for society. Try using your moniker sometime.

        2. Yes, but contingent on *what*, exactly? I don’t think any of the countersuits by Psystar against Apple are demanding any significant amount of money, and 40% of nothing is still nothing. Hell, Psystar has already been ordered to pay Apple $2.7 million, so they’re probably just continuing the fight hoping to avoid having to pay that – I don’t think the lawyers are pushing it in the hopes of a big payday.

        3. There’s nothing to base any contingency on. Contingency fees are for plaintiffs in a case, not for defendants. Psystar’s only win would have been a ruling that it could continue selling Mac clones, not an award of millions of dollars from Apple.

    1. I’d wager it’s Dell, HP, or some other PC maker paying the legal bills, simply because if Psystar wins, then that paves the road for them to be able to put Mac OS X on THEIR hardware.

      Microsoft and all its hardware partners have been losing market share to Apple BIG-TIME over the past few years, and it’s 99% because OS X is 1000 times better than any version of Windows.

      If Psystar were to win its case, it might be a way for Dell, et al to stop or at least slow the bleeding on their hardware sales.

      If that happens, Microsoft is dead.

  2. I think it’s possible that Psystar is actually a straw man for Apple itself. What better way to get a final verdict on the whole cloning issue than to take it to the courts in a proxy case where no harm is actually done?
    Big potential for negative publicity though, along with legal costs for both sides. But probably bettermthan actually fighting against HP or some other biggie.

      1. Whats wrong is shutting out anybody that has anything bad to say about government by simply calling it a “conspiracy story”.

        The Tonkin incident was once a “conspiracy theory”. So was dropping the bomb on Japan simply to see what the effects would be.

        Ask yourself this question..”How did thermite (a high tech material found in bleeding edge labs) particles end up in and around steel girders sliced at 45 degree angles at the world trade centre towers on 911?

        1. Oh, PUHLEEEZE! (And please forgive me if I don’t ask myself ANY question you might submit. On the other hand, if you’d like to discuss black helicopters and the Trilateral Commission, that’s another deal! (Sarcasm galore here . . . .)

    1. Two things:
      1. I think you meant “proxy” for Apple, not straw man.
      2. That would be a serious offense against the court, and would most likely lead to all attorneys involved being disbarred, as well as significant penalties to Apple.

      So, when you say “I think it’s possible,” you’re only showing that you don’t really understand what that would mean.

  3. If there is a big man behind this case, could it possibly be Apple…???

    If we were to entertain a possibility that’s from way out there, Apple could be surreptitiously (through some intermediaries, to cover tracks) egging these guys on. Clearly, their defense counsel is borderline charlatan, nowhere near a match for Apple’s legal bench. So, having been fairly certain that they would win, Apple could, in this theory, support these schmucks all the way to the Supreme Court in order to make sure that every other dumb (and not so dumb) company gets a very clear message, not to mention having set a most iron-clad legal precedent (affirmed by the Supreme Court, no less).

    1. Ridiculous. There is ALWAYS a chance that you lose in court, and if Apple would have lost, then anyone could make and sell Mac clones, including Dell.

      Plus, one case will not take care of all of the legal issues surrounding building clones. Apple is not about to potentially open itself up to allowing clones by staging litigation to supposedly secure its rights.

  4. If Dell (for instance) wanted to sell cheap-ass flimsy Macs and undercut Apple, a win for Psystar would enable it.
    There is TONs of money at stake here.
    When you see the name Psystar – read Dell and probably others. – no matter what the ambulance chaser says. This is not a contingency case, there is money changing hands.

    1. They weren’t found guilty, they were enjoined from ripping off Apple and selling clones.

      I do not believe the the US Supreme court will accept this case for review.

      Clearly the psystar litigation is being funded by a deep pocket source.

    2. There is no guilty/not guilty verdict in a civil case. Psystar was enjoined (legally barred by court order) from selling computers with Apple’s operating system installed on it.

      Psystar is appealing the decision to make the temporary injunction permanent. Highly, highly doubtful the US Supreme Court will accept an appeal of this case; it’s simply not a burning issue. It’s very difficult to get a permanent injunction, so the weight of evidence must be overwhelmingly against Psystar.

  5. gotta be someone feeding them cash. They have no real products. The free tonymac boot discs destroyed their lame EFI on USB product… whatever it was called.. rebelEFI or some crap

  6. I am of course hoping for clear victory for Apple.
    But whatever the route, I’m glad that the money behind Psystar is pushing this case to the limits of all possibility.
    The outcome should be a terminal and decisive verdict on what rights Apple has over its own software.
    The clone issue should come to its final resting place.

    1. That has already been done by the lower court (Psystar permanently prohibited from selling computers with Apple’s OS installed on it).

      At best Psystar could obtain an overturning of the permanent injunction, which would just send it back to the lower court for trial or damages awards. Not likely to happen.

  7. Mostly irrelevant. Consumers are mostly no longer interested in buying a generic PC with Mac OS X; they are mostly interested in buying the real thing. Also, buying and installing a major Mac OS X upgrades through a download from the Mac App Store makes irrelevant the argument that “I paid for the disc so I can do anything I want with it.”

  8. Based solely on the fact that the company name begins with the prefix ‘psy’ I am going to speculate that the owner of the company is none other than Norman Bates.

  9. Don’t worry. The Supreme Court will immediately reject any motion without comment. The case clealy has no merit nor substance requiring judicial review.

    There’s nothing to see here folks. Move along.

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