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Psystar and Apple ink partial settlement in copyright case

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 6:29PM EST
BGR

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The 17 month-long court battle between Macintosh clone maker Psystar and Apple has come to a partial end. Psystar has agreed to pay Apple an unspecified amount in damages and in return Apple will voluntarily dismiss all its trademark, trade-dress, and state-law claims against Psystar. As part of the agreement, Psystar would not be required to make payment until all appeals have been settled. That’s not the best of it. In the motion filed on Monday, Psystar is apparently arguing for clemency for its Rebel EFI utility, a product that allows Mac OS X to run on Intel PCs without much hassle, on the grounds that it “is composed exclusively of Psystar software, that is not sold in conjunction with any hardware, and that is sold entirely apart from any copy of Mac OS X or any computer running Mac OS X.” If granted, this opens the door for Psystar to sell the hardware without Mac OS X but with the Rebel EFI utility. With the Rebel EFI in hand, the burden of obtaining a copy and installing the Mac OS X on the non-Apple hardware now falls on the customer and not Psystar. Genius.

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