Apple Moves to Dismiss Psystar’s Florida Case

November 25th, 2009 at 5:06 PM - TMO Scoop by Jeff Gamet

Despite its busy schedule with Psystar in U.S. District Court in Northern California, Apple still managed to file a motion to dismiss the PC maker's case in Florida on Tuesday.

The unauthorized Mac clone maker Psystar filed a lawsuit against Apple at the end of August in Florida over Mac OS X 10.6 over claims Apple is violating antitrust laws by locking Snow Leopard to its own hardware. According to Psystar's arguments, issues over whether or not Apple has the right to block companies from making Snow Leopard-based Mac clones without permission should be dealt with independently of the similar case that's well underway in California.

In its filing with Judge Hoeveler in U.S. District Court in southern Florida, Apple requested that Psystar's case be dismissed, or at least transfered to Judge William Alsup's court because the cases are essentially identical.

"This case is a transparent attempt by Psystar Corporation to re-litigate the same issues that Psystar and Apple have been contesting... for almost a year and a half," Apple said in its filing. "This Case is the inseparable twin of the California Action, as the legal claims and issues, the technology, the parties, and most of the facts are virtually identical."

Psystar received a crushing blow on November 13 when Judge Alsup ruled the company has been infringing on Apple's copyrights by selling PCs with Mac OS X, and that it violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing the code that binds Mac OS X to Apple hardware.

Apple unsuccessfully tried to convince Judge Alsup to dismiss the Florida case in September, but may have better luck convincing Judge Hoeveler to dismiss the case now that the summary judgement ruling in the California case has been issued.

"The true purpose behind Psystar's attempt to move the parties' dispute to Florida is to forum shop and buy Psystar more time to continue its ongoing acts of infringement," Apple said in its filing.

If Psystar's luck in California is any indication, the PC maker could have a hard time convincing Judge Hoeveler that it isn't shopping around for a more sympathetic court.