Apple begins clone war

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 17 Jul 2008 at 10:26

Apple has sued Psystar, the computer manufacturer which began selling Intel-based PCs with Mac OS X pre-installed earlier this year.

The company is demanding that every machine sold so far is recalled, and that all profit from the sale of those units is handed over.

It claims that Psystar has broken copyright and trademark laws, breached the OS X sales contract and violated unfair competition rules.

Apple forbids companies from selling machines with its OS pre-installed, and from modifying the software, within the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA).

In order to get the software working with non-Apple hardware a small modification to the system has to be made.

"As alleged more fully below, by misappropriating Apple's proprietary software and intellectual property for its own use, Psystar's actions harm consumers by selling to them a poor product that is advertised and promoted in a manner that falsely and unfairly implies an affiliation with Apple," claims Apple's recently filed suit.

"Psystar's actions also have caused, and are causing, harm to Apple and constitute a misuse of Apple's intellectual property," continues the court document.

If Apple wins the case then it is unlikely that any other companies will attempt to sell Apple clones in the future, but there are certainly a lot of manufacturers who will be watching the case closely.

Even Dell, one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world, has expressed an interest in shipping Apple's software on its computers.

"If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers," Michael Dell told Fortune in 2005.