Apple gets big win in clone case

A US judge on Tuesday threw out anti-trust claims lobbied by the company against Apple. The claim argued that the Mac OS computer market was separate from the PC arena, and that as such, Apple was maintaining illegal monopoly control over the market by refusing to allow other vendors to sell computers pre-loaded with OS X.

Apple had allowed third-party vendors to build computers which ran the Macintosh operating system for a brief period in the 90's, but the licensing deals were revoked shortly after Steve Jobs returned as chief executive in 1997.

District Judge William Alsup rejected the claims, ruling that Apple did indeed face competition in the market from other hardware and software vendors, and as such, the claims of a monopoly were thrown out.

Psystar will have until December 8th to appeal the decision.

The filing was made by Psystar in response to a copyright infringement suit filed by Apple. The company made headlines this summer when it began offering computers built out of PC hardware which would be capable of running both OS X and Windows along with Linux.

Though projects to install OS X on PC hardware exist, the practice of running the system on a non-Apple computer is expressly forbidden in the OS X terms of service.

Copyright ©v3.co.uk

appleclaimscomputershardwaremarketos