Colby Springer, one of the three attorneys from Carr & Ferrell that is set to represent Psystar, has hinted that the Mac clone maker will bring up antitrust issues if the case goes to trial.
While Springer would not elaborate on legal strategies, he did speak in general terms about the case during a recent interview. “This case has been mischaracterized,” said Springer. “There are a lot more complicated issues than just copyright or trademark. There are more complex issues [than those] in respect to the end-user licensing agreement. And antitrust issues come into play, too.”
When asked, he expanded upon his comments about using antitrust as a possible defense, Springer noted to “take a look at the Web site of the lead attorney representing Apple,” he said. “Apple knows where this is going.”
James Gilliland Jr., a partner of the San Francisco based firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew has been the first of Apple’s attorneys named on court documents. Just as Springer had mentioned, Gilliland’s bio does mention his antitrust experience, yet further notes his patent, copyright and trademark infringement, unfair competition and breach of contract expertise.
“Gilliland was on the Townsend team that successfully collected more than $1.1 billion from Microsoft Corp. in a class-action antitrust lawsuit after the software and operating system developer settled before that case went to trial in early 2003.”
In his recent statement, Springer had claimed that “this will be an interesting case.” After being hired to represent Psystar, he added that “They came to us, I think, because this is a much bigger issue than just copyright,” he said. “There’s the fact that we are in the [jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for] Northern California, but we’ve also tangled with Apple before. We’ve dealt with Apple. So we’re familiar with the courts and the parties. And we have an antitrust background.”
It has been deemed by several other Intellectual Property (IP) attorneys that playing the antitrust card will be in Psystar’s best interest. “What Psystar might say is, ‘What we would like to do is use the Mac operating system’s unique features more broadly on a variety of hardware. I think it’s a very, very hard argument to make, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried. My guess is that they will mount some kind of direct attack on [Apple's exclusive] licensing,” said Carole Handler, a partner in the IP dept. of Wildman, Harrold, Allen, and Dixon.
The latest filing in the suit was a deadline extension mutually agreed upon by both Apple and Psystar that has been set for August 18th.
