Mac-clone maker Psystar officially responded to Apple's copyright-infringement lawsuit on Thursday by filing a countersuit that alleges anticompetitive business practices.
As expected, the 54-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charges Apple with restraint of trade, unfair competition and other violations of antitrust law.
Miami-based Psystar, owned by Rudy Pedraza, requests that the court find Apple's end-user license agreements (EULA) void and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
"The present litigation is more complex than the misinformed and mischaracterized allegations of copyright infringement," attorney Colby Springer, of antitrust specialists Carr & Ferrell, said in a statement. "The litigation involves the anticompetitive nature of the Apple EULA and similar anticompetitive tactics related to the misuse of Apple's copyrights."
Psystar argues that its OpenComputer product is shipped with a fully licensed, unmodified copy of Mac OS X, and that the company has simply "leveraged open source-licensed code including Apple's OS" to enable a PC to run the Mac operating system.
Pedraza said says his company is "allowing more people to take advantage of a great operating system that Apple has created at a more accessible cost than the pricey Mac."
Apple will have 30 days to respond to Psystar's countersuit and so far has declined to comment on the case.
CNET News.com's Erica Ogg contributed to this report.
This article was first published as a blog on CNET News.com.
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great news
if Psystar loses then its a mockery of the judicial systems. If tehy screwed Microsoft over this then Apple which has the same monopoly should be treated equal
Posted by ritesh on Wednesday, September 03 2008 01:12 PM