According to documents filed today in Florida, Apple is suing virtualization software company Corellium.
Corellium allows customers to create and interact with virtual iOS devices — a software iPhone, for example, running actual iOS firmware, all within the browser. Apple says this is copyright infringement, and is demanding Corellium stops “all uses of” its iOS virtualization products and pays Apple unspecified “damages and lost profits.”
In its complaint, Apple writes:
The product Corellium offers is a “virtual” version of Apple mobile hardware products, accessible to anyone with a web browser. Specifically, Corellium serves up what it touts as a perfect digital facsimile of a broad range of Apple’s market-leading devices—recreating with fastidious attention to detail not just the way the operating system and applications appear visually to bona fide purchasers, but also the underlying computer code. Corellium does so with no license or permission from Apple.
MacDailyNews Take: You couldn’t beg for a lawsuit from Apple any better than Corellium, and that’s a list that includes the likes of Psystar!
I don’t know, but if Cornellium can show that no code was copied, a “clean room” approach, Apple will resoundingly lose.
Well, you are true to your name. However, I prefer to wait and let this one play out. It’s just me.
I agree, and I don’t often predict, but there’s been much precedent.
Actually, “applecynic” is correct. If no Apple code was used there is no copyright infringement. It could just be another case of Apple’s crack legal department doing what they do best: nothing that makes any sense. If no Apple code was used this just becomes another “look and feel” lawsuit, and we all know how well that went for Apple. Apple’s legal team has not had a clear and dramatic win since the Franklin case back in the early 80s.
Apple’s firmware IS BEING used according to the article: “… running actual iOS firmware…”
I now concede that it does not appear to be a clean room approach. It’s not straightforward. Rather it’s about the legalities of a virtualized copy. TBD.