“The Miami-based Macintosh clone maker that was sued by Apple Inc. earlier this month has retained a law firm that has beaten Apple in the past, court documents show,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s a stretch to describe an out of court settlement outcome as “beaten.”
Keizer continues, “In a Monday filing that extended Psystar Corp.’s deadline to respond to Apple’s lawsuit, the company was represented by lawyers from Carr & Ferrell LLP, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm that touts its intellectual property (IP) expertise on its Web site.”
“Apple [has] charged Psystar with multiple counts of violating copyright, trademark, breach-of-contract and unfair-competition laws by installing Mac OS X 10.5 on Intel-based computers that it has sold since April. According to the lawsuit, Psystar violated the Mac OS X end-user licensing agreement (EULA) when it installed Leopard on its OpenComputer desktops and OpenServ servers, both which can be ordered from the company with Apple’s operating system onboard,” Keizer reports.
Psystar’s lawyers “were among the lawyers who represented Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Burst.com Inc. in its patent-infringement case against Apple that started in 2006. The case was settled out of court late last year when Apple agreed to pay Burst $10 million to license its audio- and video-streaming patents. Burst had accused Apple of using its technology in the iPod player and the iTunes online music store,” Keizer reports.
More in the full article here.
Regardless of the outcome, the “cloning” issue will likely be rendered moot once we find out what Apple has up their sleeve regarding custom chipsets, and/or P.A. Semi, and/or ARM.
Beating a dead horse
Where do they got all that monney?
Isn’t there Redmond behind, ready to play some durty games?
If this came out, it woudn’t even surprise me!…
Here’s where journalists could proof their perspicacity!
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Just because Carr & Ferrell beat Apple’s lawyer’s once before doesn’t mean they’ll win again.
@almux
yur furckin aye reyet
To win the case, all Apple’s lawyers need to do is have the judge try to use one of Psystar’s computers.
As usual, lawyers happy to waste other peoples money and line their own pockets for no resultant good…
I think MDN is right about Apples new chipset thingy rendering the Psystars clones dead when we come to SnowLeopard. Maybe that was one of the reason Apple waited so long before they sued Psystar ,; they thought they would be finished with a new set of computers with the new chipset that would ensure OS X to tun only on macs….
I thought the point of Snow Leopard is to be optimized for the Intel processors. If a custom chipset is needed to run Snow Leopard what about all of the current Mac users that have purchased intel based macs? I think apple needs to beat Psystar legally and end the cloning issue outright.
@ t
“Custom Chipset” – The other supporting chips on the mother board.
Has nothing to do with the Intel processor. That will stay.
So where does little Psystar get the $$$ to hire lawyers?
Rumor: Psystar is a toy for Dell who is desperate to get OS X on PC’s and this is the way to test it legally without tarnishing their reputation or threatening their deeper pockets.
What’s wrong with the management at PissStar?
First they come up with a horrendous name, then a horrendous product and now they’re pissing away investors bankrolls paying attorneys.
Even if they could sell they’re pieces of crap “macs”, the marketshare will not support the product in the long term.
I heard through the solar vine that Psystar is delevoping an Apple iTele clone called the Psyco Tele. Which sounds better, an Apple iTele or a Psystar Psyco Tele? I know which choice I’ve made for my personal intergalactic teleportation needs.
As to lawyers, even when they know they will lose, they will take a case and make plenty of money on billing for time, printouts, copying, research, sparkling water, continuances, delays, phone calls……
That is what lawyers do best. Drag out a simple case and make a fortune on billing. They don’t care about anything except themselves.
MDN take is spot on. They will be able to sell at best computers running the OLD OS. What would be very interesting is that obviously, if this was to happen, all current Macs would be rendered incompatible also to upgrade.
@ i want my iTele
Geez, give it a rest.
This lawsuit is VERY different from the Burst one. I can see that and I’m not even a lawyer.
I can’t see anyway Apple will lose this one. OS X is their property to sell and Psystart violated the terms of that. Open and shut case!
Lawyers out there: any comments?
@Register or Login,
“What’s wrong with the management at PissStar?”
It’s two brothers who are complete hacks looking for publicity and a fast buck.
It was going to be hard to beat the Burst case, AFTER Microsoft had already lost.
@ Think,
I’ve always been amazed at how lawyers, plumbers, electricians, corporate types, etc. make so much more than our country’s doctors and educators do. It just goes to show how screwed up our nation’s priorities are.
Yes, I am a doctor, but this isn’t entirely self-serving (although I do have a buttload of student loan debt). We are losing the best and brightest who are choosing to go into business, law, etc. rather than the professions where we need them – mainly education and health care.
I’ve been saying it for years (not here but to friends and family) – if things don’t change soon, we will be in a full-blown healthcare crisis by 2015 at the latest.
“I think MDN is right about Apples new chipset thingy rendering the Psystars clones dead when we come to SnowLeopard”
That’ll be true if Snow Leopard will not run on all existing Intel Macs. However cloning of Macs will be possible for as long as Apple continues to support the legacy Intel Macs it’s currently selling.
iTelly, available now $229. Apple can’t guarantee that you’ll be the first person to own one, but given how well they’ve been selling, you can probably be the second or third.
Who cares about PissStar?
Apple WILL do a modern version of the key hardware chip that kept early Macs from being cloned.
A chip, with custom code on it can not be copied because of copyright laws, here endith the clones. Done. next?
“OS X is their property to sell and Psystart violated the terms of that. “
If you can prove that Psystar is the END USER and therefore subject to the END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT that Apple is relying on, you might be right. Of course it’s just possible that Psystar is not the END USER of the systems it sells. That would leave it in Apple’s hands to sue each Psystar END USER.
“A chip, with custom code on it can not be copied because of copyright laws, here endith the clones”
Actually it’s well settled law from the PC Bios cloning days that you can create clean code which does the same thing and it is legal. In this case one team disassembles the Apple code and writes a spec. The other team writes code to the spec.
@Open and Shut
The problem is not only the END USER argument. Psystar was also distributing their hardware with peinstalled OSX. You also get a closed box version. Well if they didn’t open the box, then you are getting two licenses, one installed one in the box. I don’t think this is entirely legal. Now, if they opened the box and installed the software, they broke the contract agreement that specifically sates that the software can not be installed on anything but a Apple branded Mac. So, however you want to turn this, the courts will have to decide, not you or me.