Making Sense of Technology
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By Jim DalrympleNovember 14, 2009, 5:40 pm PT
It looks like the battle is finally over. Apple on Friday won its legal war against Mac clone-maker Psystar.
Apple and Psystar both filed motions for summary judgment with the court, but Judge William Alsup agreed with Apple. In his decision, the judge sided solely with Apple and denied Psystar’s claims, according to the court documents posted by legal site Groklaw [PDF link].
While the main part of the case has been decided, there are still a few lose ends to clear up. Items that remain to be decided at trial include Apple claims of breach of contract; induced breach of contract; trademark infringement; trademark dilution; trade dress infringement; state unfair competition under California Business and Professions Code; and common law unfair competition.
Apple and Psystar will be back in court between November 23 and December 7 to work out the details.
Now we need to find out who funded these rip-off artists.
That’s right. I’m not sure if we’ll ever find that out, but it’s still a lingering question.
I can’t believe that Psystar thought that they would win this. Apple tried playing around with clones awhile back and I’m sure after they abandoned that, they made sure to close any potential loopholes for future hardware makers.
I am all for competition as it drives down costs and raises innovation (usually), however I think one of Apple’s keys to success is the fact that they control the hardware and core OS software. When they design/code the OS, they know what each and every user could be running from a hardware standpoint; that’s something that Microsoft will never be able to compare to.