Edible Apple

About a month ago, Psystar filed a motion with the court in California seeking an order which would compel Apple to disclose sensitive financial information such as profit margin data for its products.   If you recall, Psystar was extremely unhappy that Apple’s Senior VP of marketing, Phil Schiller, was unwilling to discuss those details during his deposition.

Pystar argued that information pertaining to Apple’s profit margins was relevant to determining the degree to which Apple had been financially damaged by Psystar’s business, if at all.  Apple, for its part, argued that its profit margin data was wholly irrelevant to the case because it was not seeking to recoup lost profits from Psystar, a fact which would have otherwise made such data relevant.

Moreover, Apple’s response went for the jugular when it flat out asserted that Psystar wasn’t trustworthy enough to keep Apple’s sensitive financial information from “accidentally” leaking out, a valid concern considering the fact that Psystar CEO Rudy Pedraza had already been caught lying under oath during his deposition.  Specifically, though, Apple pointed out that an email exchange between Psystar lead counsel K.A.D Camara and Pedrazza had found its way onto the website of Camara’s old Harvard professor, raising a concern, Apple argued, that Psystar couldn’t be trusted to keep private information under a protective order from going public.

Psystar, naturally, took umbrage with Apple’s assertions, labeling them as “unprofessional”, and once again raised the issue of Apple not disclosing what it deemed to be pertinent financial data.

In late September, the Court issued a ruling on the matter and denied Psystar’s motion to compel Apple to disclose information regarding its profit margins, noting that such information “is not required for either parties’ claims or defenses in this action.”

In expected fashion, Judge Alsup went through each of Psystar’s legal arguments and pointed out that almost every one of Psystar’s cited cases were either inapplicable or wrongly interpreted in their favor.  That’s either the result of bad lawyering or a sign that Psystar is desperately searching, yet ultimately failing, to find cases which can back up its legal position.  All in all, that’s not too surprising given Psystar’s history of completely bogus legal arguments over the past few months, such as their ridiculous assertion, a few months back, that Apple had a monopoly in the OS X market – a position which the Court quickly found to be without any legal merit.

You can view a .pdf of the court’s order over here.