November 16, 2009

Apple won a motion for summary judgment in its suit against Psystar Corp., which covered copyright infringement. A number of other claims, such as breach of contract, remain for trial.

The ruling, filed in the Northern District Court of California on Friday, was posted by Groklaw on Saturday.

Judge William Alsup found for Apple on every count that he ruled upon, with the primary focus on copyright. Here, Judge Alsup ruled that Psystar had violated Apple's rights to reproduce OS X, distribute it, and to create derivative works.

Apple originally filed suit in July 2008, after Psystar had begun shipping its own PCs, dubbed "Open Computers," with a copy of Apple's Mac OS X upon them. After a judge tossed out Psystar's antitrust accusations, Judge Alsup allowed Psystar to alter its suit to address alleged copyright misuse by Apple. Meanwhile, Psystar continued to manufacture Mac clones, and even the software tool Psystar used.

The judge noted that Psystar did not defend its right to modify the OS X for limited purposes, as it has a right to do. The judge also ruled out a "fair use" defense.

Psystar also argued that it had the right to sell OS X as part of the first-sale doctrine. The judge ruled that any copies were not made with the permission of Apple. In any case, the copies installed on the Open Computers, in some cases, did not even match up with the "backup copies" sold together with the computers, the judge wrote.

"There, [Apple expert John] Kelly stated that he had examined nine Psystar computers that had Mac OS X installed on the hard drive," the judge wrote. "He further stated that the Mac OS X software for five of those computers was not the same as the software found on the Mac OS X DVDs shipped with the computers. Instead, those computers had a different version of Mac OS X actually installed on hard drive than was found on the accompanying Mac OS X DVD. According to Table 2 in Kelly's declaration, three of the other nine computers did not include a Mac OS X DVD at all."

The judge ruled that the bootloader added to the Open Computers would render the computers unusable if they were removed. "The inclusion of the copyrighted Mac OS X with the above-described additions and modifications makes Psystar's product an infringing, derivative work," Judge Alsup wrote.

Source:-http://www.pcmag.com