Psystar touts new Open(7) Mac clone

Posted by Dennis Sellers Jul 2, 2009 at 12:31pm

It may have declared bankruptcy but Mac cloner, Psystar, has purportedly released yet another Mac clone. According to reports from AppleInsider and The Mac Observer, the new system is the US$1,499.99 Open(7), which will reportedly marry Mac OS X with Intel’s Nehalem Xeon chips to yield the company’s “fastest and most quiet computing configuration” yet.

Psystar claims the new clone sports 6GB of memory, either a 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz quad-core Xeon Nehalem, 1TB hard drive, 20x DVD +-RW DL hard drive (with a Blu-ray burning drive as an option) and a GeForce 9500GT graphics card with 512MB of video RAM as standard options. Other build-to-order options are described at the Psystar web site.

Lasat month an automatic stay of proceedings was imposed when Psystar filed for bankruptcy in May has been lifted by the court, Judge Robert A. Mark, who serves the Southern District of Florida U.S. Bankruptcy Court, lifted the stay on Friday, opening the door for Apple to continue its copyright infringement case against the company, reports CNET. Apple made a strong case for having the stay lifted, noting that Psystar filed for bankruptcy after a motion was granted compelling Psystar to give Apple additional documents.

Psystar, which filed for Chapter 11 protection May 21, owes the law firm of Carr & Ferrell LLC more than $88,000, and a court-mandated mediator nearly $7,000, according to the bankruptcy petition. Psystar hired Carr & Ferrell, a firm noted for its intellectual property expertise, last July, after Apple sued the company over its practice of installing Mac OS X on its computers.

Last month it was reported that Apple has asked a federal court judge to intervene in its discovery process with Mac clone maker Psystar, “which is reportedly violating proper procedure by refusing to answer key questions and turn over critical financial information about its business.” Psystar has claimed in the past that Apple has violated Sherman antitrust rules and other U.S. laws. Psystar claims in court documents filed in U.S. District Court for San Francisco that Apple “has engaged in certain anticompetitive behavior and/or other actions that are in violation of the public policy underlying the federal copyright laws.”

In response, Apple said the defendant, Psystar, “is knowingly infringing Apple’s copyrights and trademarks, and inducing others to do the same.” Psystar makes and sells personal computers that use, without permission, Apple’s proprietary operating system software.

Normally, litigation involving a company in Chapter 11 is put on hold. But Apple is seeking a “relief from stay,”, meaning that the case would proceed as scheduled, although even if Apple did win it would not “collect any judgement other than through the bankruptcy claims processor further order of [the] court,” according to IT Wire.

Apple’s motion asserted that Psystar would “suffer little, if any, prejudice” if the stay is lifted, but that maintaining it “will prejudice Apple.” According to IT Wire, the argument is made that determining the legality of Psystar’s underlying business model (selling computers running Mac OS X without Apple’s permission) is a central issue in sorting out how Psystar could be reorganised successfully.

According to Apple’s motion, “The Debtor [Psystar] has no legitimate property rights in an infringing product and cannot pursue reorganization of its business affairs based on the sale of products that violates applicable non-bankruptcy law.”

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