Apple Wins Summary Judgement Against Psystar In Copyright Infringement Case
9:42 am, November 16th, 2009, Ed Sutherland

Photo: bloomsberries/flickr)
Be careful what you wish for. That may be the lesson Florida-based Psystar received after a judge issued a summary judgement in favor of Apple. “Psystar infringed Apple’s exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X,” the court ruled.
Judge William Alsup denied Psystar’s motion for a summary judgement alleging Apple’s End User License Agreement was a form of copyright abuse. Alsup also ruled Psystar violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by installing a version of Apple’s OS that would run on the company’s computers.
“Specifically, [Psystar] made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of the Mac OS X to run on Psystar’s computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions,” the judge wrote in a San Francisco ruling issued Friday.
Although the summary judgement deals a blow to Psystar on the copyright infringement issues, a number of other areas remain for a Dec. 14 court hearing and January 2010 trial date.
The legal battle between Apple and Psystar has had a number of twists and turns. In October, the Florida company started licensing its virtualization technology to hardware vendors, the Psystar OEM Licensing Program allowing Mac OS X 10.6 to run on Intel-based machines other than those built by Apple.
In September, a member of Psystar’s defense dropped out, months after the Florida company hired new legal help.
Earlier this month, the two brothers behind Psystar – Robert and Rudy Pedraza – were profiled by the Miami New Times.
[Via AppleInsider, MacRumors and Groklaw]
Posted by Ed Sutherland in News | Comment on this article
If you enjoyed this article:
Subscribe via RSS or email, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter













Lovely!
Ridiculous case.
Deocliciano Okssipin Vieira, on November 16th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Oh well, I suppose the founders of Psystor will be off to do something more useful, like racteering or money laundering!
About time this bloody stupid case was brought to a conclusion!
Fuzzypig, on November 16th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
actually this only solves one case. they have separate ones for Leopard and Snow Leopard AND Apple filed a suit on all sorts of trademark charges.
so it’s not over, but this wound will likely end things sooner than before.
Charli, on November 16th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
It’s about time.
@Charli – This finding sets a precedent, and that will go a long way in the other cases they have on the table with Psystar.
GGeek, on November 16th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Detailed analysis of the summary judgement against Psystar, for those who are interested:
http://obamapacman.com/2009/11/court-declares-psystar-admitted-counterfeit-in-mac-os-x-copyright-infringement-case-apple-wins-summary-judgement-highlights/
Obama Pacman, on November 16th, 2009 at 11:35 pm