The legal counterclaims filed against Apple by illicit Mac clone maker Psystar have been dismissed by US District Judge William Alsup. In his 19-page decision, issued today, Alsup determined that Apple does not appear to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Act, or the Cartwright Act by tying its operating system to its own hardware, and that Psystar failed to provide sufficient legal support for its assertion that the Mac OS itself constitutes a market.

Psystar began selling its EULA-breaking Mac clones in April of this year, when it introduced the $399 OpenMac. Psystar's machine is an upgradeable tower that apparently uses modified firmware in order to run Mac OS X. While Apple's EULA forbids running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, Ars received a "no comment" from Psystar in April about the whether it viewed the EULA as an issue, and the company's clones eventually began shipping.

Finally, some three months after Psystar first entered the scene, Apple filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging violations of Apple's licenses, trademarks, and copyright. Then, in August, Psystar returned fire, suing Apple for anticompetitive restraint of trade. During a press conference at the time, Psystar owner Rudy Pedraza said that he hoped to have Apple's EULA ruled invalid and that all Psystar wanted to do was to make Mac OS X "more accessible" to the general public.

In October—surprise!—Apple filed to have Psystar's counterclaims dismissed. The company asserted that Psystar was simply trying to avoid being held responsible for taking actions that the company knew were unlawful. "Psystar asserts deeply flawed antitrust counterclaims designed to have this Court force Apple to license its software to Psystar, a direct competitor," wrote Apple at the time. "The Court should reject Psystar’s efforts to excuse its copyright infringement, and dismiss these Counterclaims with prejudice."

That (finally) brings us to where we are today. According to Judge Alsup, a market is rarely defined by a single company's product or brand, and Psystar had failed to offer sufficient support for its theory that the Mac OS makes up an entire market of its own. Additionally, he determined that Psystar's claim that Apple's machines are more expensive than similarly-configured computers running other OSes doesn't necessarily signal a distinct market either. Psystar itself admitted in its counterclaims that, although Apple enjoys strong brand recognition and loyalty, it is not lacking competition—Alsup points out that Psystar failed to explain why these competitors should be excluded from the definition of the relevant market.

Apple's extensive advertising campaigns were another point raised by Psystar; Alsup appeared to be perplexed by this. "Those advertising campaigns more plausibly support an interference contrary to that asserted in the counterclaim—vigorous advertising is a sign of competition, not a lack thereof," he wrote.

For these reasons, Judge Alsup granted Apple's motion to have Psystar's counterclaims dismissed. This does not mean that the case is over, however. Psystar has 20 calendar days to amend its claims, before they are dismissed permanently. And, of course, Apple's own case against Psystar will continue to move forward. After suffering sweeping legal blows during the dismissal of its counterclaim, however, Psystar looks to be on legal thin ice.

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