The long-running legal battle between Apple and Psystar has taken yet another unexpected turn today. Not long after being found guilty of copyright and DMCA violations in a summary judgment, the unauthorized Mac clone maker has apparently inked a partial settlement deal that will only be called upon should all of their appeals fail.
The deal calls for Psystar to pay an as-yet unspecified amount in damages to Apple as well as cease pre-installing OS X onto their computers. In return, Apple is said to be dropping all "trademark, trade-dress and state law claims," thus removing the need to go to trial. Interestingly, this may not prevent sales of OS-free machines, onto which Psystar hopes customers will be able to load OS X themselves using their Rebel EFI software tool.
The company submitted a motion to exclude Rebel EFI from any injunction, arguing that it is sold separately from computers and does not contain any infringing code. Of course the tool's sole purpose is to enable the installation of Apple's operating system on non-Apple hardware, so chances of excluding it from any injunction seem slim. Apple has until December 7 to respond to Psystar's arguments in the partial settlement filing.