Stephen Withers
Friday, 12 December 2008 08:45
Opinion and Analysis
Page 3 of 3
A potted history of the case:
Earlier this year,
Psystar started selling a PC assembled from off-the-shelf parts selected for compatibility with Mac OS X, and offered Apple's operating system as a preinstalled option.
The company followed up with
server configurations competing with Apple's Xserve and optionally running Mac OS X Server.
In July,
Apple launched legal action against Psystar, alleging copyright, trademark and trade dress infringement; trademark dilution; breach of contract; and unfair competition.
Psystar filed a counterclaim against Apple under antitrust laws, but that didn't get them very far.
Apple sought to have Psystar's countersuit dismissed, and
the judge agreed that Psystar had failed to establish that there were distinct markets for Mac OS and Mac OS capable computers.
Apple then revised its claim to allege that Psystar had illegally circumvented technological protection measures incorporated in Mac OS X - an assertion that was
refuted by Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.