At least, that's the impression one gets from Psystar's latest legal filing, in which the company claims that Apple has never actually obtained a copyright for OS X, and therefore can't sue Psystar for copyright infringement.
Apple and Psystar have been in a lather of litigation since July, when Apple filed a copyright infringement suit against the Doral, Fla.-based system builder for selling a $399 Mac clone with OS X pre-installed.
Psystar subsequently filed a countersuit accusing Apple of monopolistic tactics, and since then the battle has become a tit-for-tat affair in which Psystar is trying to prove that the total control Apple exerts over its software and hardware constitutes an illegal monopoly.
ChannelWeb sister publication InformationWeek dug up the following bizarre nugget from Psystar's filing last week with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco that suggests that Psystar's legal team has been hitting the holiday egg nog a bit too hard:
Apple "is prohibited from bringing action against Psystar for the alleged infringement of one or more of the plaintiff's copyrights for failure to register said copyrights with the copyright office as required," according to the Psystar filing.
It's the latest twist in a weird saga that got weirder earlier this month when Psystar accused Apple of illegally manipulating OS X so that it won't boot correctly on non-Apple hardware.
Psystar also accused Apple of constructing its End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) to force users to buy Apple-branded hardware, and of using the anticircumvention clause built into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to keep third-party hardware makers from building OS X-based systems.
It's unclear whether Psystar's claims hold any weight, but one has to imagine that the David in this case is starting to get backed into a corner by a Goliath with all the rules apparently on its side.
| • |
| • |
| • |
| • |
| • |
| • |
| • |
|
|
