“One of the attorneys hired by Psystar Corp. to defend it in a copyright- and trademark-infringement lawsuit brought by Apple Inc. hinted that the clone maker will bring up antitrust issues if the case goes to trial,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.
“Colby Springer, one of the three lawyers from the Palo Alto, Calif., firm of Carr & Ferrell LLP who will represent Psystar, wouldn’t go into details about legal strategies but spoke in general terms about the case during an interview on Thursday,” Keizer reports.
“‘This case has been mischaracterized,’ said Springer. ‘There are a lot more complicated issues than just copyright or trademark. There are more complex issues [than those] in respect to the end-user licensing agreement. And antitrust issues come into play, too,'” Keizer reports.
More in the full article here.
“…complex issues here….” is just lawyer-speak for “get out your checkbook, I need to make a car payment.”
“…complex issues here…” I think is lawyer-ise for…..”Shit, I really don’t have a case but I better make something up and not let Apple in on the fact that I don’t have a case. Hopefully I can be really creative with the English language and convince Apple to settle out of court so I can make my car payment and pay alimony.”
Hmmm. OK. Charge PC users $500.00 – $600.00 a pop to install it. Offer ZERO support. Have a SN network sniffer.
Give it to Mac users for free.
Actually you should expect this kind of FUD from their lawyers. They are trying very hard to deflect attention from the real issue at hand: Apple accuses Psystar of taking their intellectual property and selling it as if it were their own.
If Psystar had limited their activities to selling hardware that was compatible with MacOS X and providing instructions for installing MacOS X on their hardware, I doubt Apple would have sued. Instead, they installed MacOS X on the hardware and sold the bundle as if they had created it. Reselling someone’s intellectual property as if it were your own is a bit of a no-no. My guess is that Apple will focus on Psystar’s using the MacOS X name and trademark to market their product, which potentially damages Apple’s reputation and confuses customers as to who is at fault if the Psystar computer does not work as Psystar claims. If you read the Apple financial statements, you will find that Apple both has spent a lot of money establishing the MacOS X trademark has having value and believe that the value of the trademark contributes significantly to Apple’s bottom line. Damaging the value of their trademark for your gain is equivalent to stealing from Apple.
Actually these kind of trademark infringement cases are relatively straight forward. Unless you have a license to use a trademark, you cannot use the trademark in a manner that “borrows” the reputation of the trademark holder.
The second significant issue is the fact that Psystar appears to be distributing a copy of a MacOS X Update, which is Apple’s intellectual property, as if it were their own. I assure you that if you put up a server that distributes Microsoft’s updates to Window’s owners so they do not have to access the Microsoft servers, you will find yourself in a “whole lot of trouble.”
On the other hand, the “monopoly” suggestion is a real stretch. Trademarks, copyrights and patents are all legal monopolies, which are allowed because they are very narrow. Even though Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly with respect to its control of the PC operating systems, it is not legal to either use the Windows trademark or the Windows software without a license from Microsoft. Do either and you are probably due for a rude awakening in court with Microsoft’s lawyers.
This has to do with bundling. IBM got tripped up on this.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
They can complain about how Apple violates antitrust laws and does upskirt photography and has B.O. to boot. And in the end, the retards will be trampled under the horse’s hooves pulling Apple’s chariot.
@Passerby
Getting back to the Ford analogy, what Axiotron is doing is similar to a company that buys a Ford truck chassis, and builds a body – dump truck, fire truck, mini bus, whatever – on the chassis. Or a company buys a stock lincoln and stretches it and otherwise tricks it out into a limousine.
Lawyers will bring the death of our society. They truly lack any moral compass! I have no doubt this was a planned strategy all along. These Psystar guys do not have the financial wherewithal to be paying for these kind of low life lawyers. I would not doubt that Dell or Microsoft or both are really behind this.
Should Apple actually lose (which I doubt.. of course Psystar’s lawyers will bring up every possible theory in their defense), mac users will be the real losers.
Apple will be forced to change its business practices. Those of you that just use macs have NO IDEA how wretchedly annoying and time wasting Windows activation and things like Windows Genuine Advantage can be. MS subjects its users to this because of rampant piracy. Apple’s anti-piracy strategy is to sell the hardware.
If you really want to run OSX on non-apple hardware, then quietly investigate the options that are out there. As long as it is techies configuring their own machines, I don’t think Apple is threatened enough to make life miserable for its customers.
But if Psystar wins, you will all regret it. Trust me.
Oh, and that $129 for a copy for MacOSX. That’s for an upgrade. Retail for a full blown copy of Vista is around $300. One of the reasons Psystar is so cheap is that they are using an “upgrade” priced OS package as an initial install.
And even if Apple were forced to license MacOSX, like MS, they can certainly charge whatever they want…
And another annoying practice they’d be forced to follow is all those different flavors.
if the courts were to force Apple to offer OSX for generic hardware, it WON’T be the same easy OSX license we currently enjoy.
@ Laugh it up dot com: wow, a ferarri engine in a malibu would HAUL ASS man!!! haha
The best analogy is the Beatles suing a group called Psystars for singing Paul McCartney songs and having the Psystars claim restraint of trade rising to the level of a Trust violation against the Beatles for prohibiting other groups from singing their original songs as their defense and claiming the Beatles should be required to license their music to other groups.
In another thread, someone here intimated that the Psytar/Cloning issue would become a moot point as Apple generated and implemented their own ASIC design to make their computers–otherwise based on widely available components–basically unclonable. And that’s not just their right, but it’s critical to their business model to keep their OS the focus, rendering the computers themselves essentially appliances. They can’t adopt M$’s model and survive, so it’s unrealistic to demand that they should.
“Oh, and that $129 for a copy for MacOSX. That’s for an upgrade. Retail for a full blown copy of Vista is around $300. One of the reasons Psystar is so cheap is that they are using an “upgrade” priced OS package as an initial install.”
Actually, you can just buy an upgrade version of Vista and do a full install from it with no prior installation. Costs about $99.
The best analogy is the Beatles suing a group called Psystars for singing Paul McCartney songs and having the Psystars claim restraint of trade rising to the level of a Trust violation against the Beatles for prohibiting other groups from singing their original songs as their defense and claiming the Beatles should be required to license their music to other groups.
You know what an analogy is, right? Try this: The Beatles will sell you their songs, but require you to sign a document in which you agree to only play said songs on a “Beatles” branded audio player. Instead of a “Beatles” branded player, Psystar loads the music on an iPod and gets sued.