Psystar switches lawyers in renewed defense

The small PC builder on Monday was granted permission in a Northern District of California civil court to replace its existing legal team with the law firm of Camara & Sibley, a normally Houston-based team that required a pro hac vice order to operate outside of its normal jurisdiction.

Why it's choosing new lawyers at this stage isn't fully evident. When it first mounted its defense, Psystar had gone out of its way to seek a legal team that had previously defeated Apple and which was an expert in intellectual property. Since then, however, the attorneys have had their counterclaims against Apple dismissed and were left in limbo when Psystar went into bankruptcy, putting a hold on the case until Apple had a stay on the case dismissed. Whether or not Psystar's previously non-payable debt contributed to the switch in lawyers is equally uncertain.

Now that the company is re-emerging, though, it's not only prepared to rely on new legal representation but on public support. The company sent an e-mail newsletter on Tuesday which promised an upcoming community page and a wiki page. The two would not only provide Psystar's own code contributions for running Mac OS X on non-Apple computers but planned to "explain and perhaps even standardize" ways of installing the software on any modern Intel-based PC.

Not surprisingly, the same messages also reiterated Psystar's case for its potential customers and argued that, if anything, its business was doing Apple a favor.

"We buy hundreds of copies of OS X legally, from retailers like Amazon and Apple itself," Psystar said. "We're probably one of Apple's biggest customers."