Miami-based Psystar, owned by Rudy Pedraza, is suing Apple under two federal laws aimed at discouraging monopolies and cartels, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. The suit alleges Apple is tying the Mac OS to its own hardware, therefore engaging into "an anticompetitive restrain of trade," according to attorney Colby Springer of antitrust specialists Carr & Ferrell.

Psystar is requesting the court to find Apple's EULA void, the Cnet News report mentions, and is asking for unspecified damages. Also, Psystar's attorneys are calling Apple's allegations of copyright infringement "misinformed and mischaracterized". The Florida-based Mac-cloner argues that its OpenComputer product is shipped with a fully licensed, unmodified copy of Mac OS X. Adding that the company has simply "leveraged open source-licensed code including Apple's OS" to enable a PC to run the Mac OS, Pedraza claims they want to make Apple's Mac OS "more accessible" by offering it on less expensive hardware than Apple's own computing solutions.

"My goal is to provide an alternative, not to free the Mac OS," said Pedraza. "What we want to do is to provide an alternative, an option... It's not that people don't want to use Mac OS, many people are open to the idea, but they're not used to spending an exorbitant amount of money on something that is essentially generic hardware."

Apple is actually the company making the first step towards a legal dispute between the two firms. Psystar is now merely counter-suing Apple's claims of copyright infringement, hoping to... well, win. It is worth noting that Psystar missed not one, but two court deadlines in answering to Apple's charges, requesting more time to prepare for the fight. At least we now know why.

Apple has 30 days to respond to Pystar's counter claim, the Cnet report notes. The Cupertino-based Mac maker declined to comment on the matter for the time being.