Psystar, the Mac clone maker taken to court by Apple on copyright infringement accusations, decided to respond with a similar legal action, accusing Apple on its anticompetitive business practices. The countersuit was filed yesterday afternoon in the U.S. District Court for Northern California.

The law suit is based on two federal laws, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, which are looking to discourage monopolies and cartels. Attorney Colby Springer, affiliated with antitrust specialists Carr & Ferrell, explained that Apple’s policy to use the Mac operating system on all of its hardware is "an anticompetitive restrain of trade."

Psystar owner Rudy Pedraza explained that his intentions are strictly linked to finding a cheaper way for people to use the Mac OS. "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."

So far, Apple did not comment on the accusations and over the next 30 days the company will have to present its official response.

The story began earlier this year when Psystar opened its online store, offering a computer called OpenMac, which presented many elements from Apple’s operating system and retailed for a much smaller price. The offer was received with great enthusiasm and the huge number of orders actually led to the immediate crash of the Web site. The problem was soon fixed and the orders continued until another problem appeared, this time related to the payment-processing company which decided to pull its services from the site. The company found a solution and continued to sell the computers under two new names, the OpenComputer and OpenPro Computer.

The name change was not enough to please Apple’s officials, who filed a suit against Psystar in July. The action was anticipated by many, but Mr. Pedraza appeared extremely irritated with the fact that Apple did not contact him before sending the legal papers, a procedure applied by most of the companies before filing a lawsuit. Apple also accused Psystar of harming its brand through its inferior products, which make significantly more noise, break-down and register bad video signals.

At this point, aside from preparing for court, Psystar’s activity continues, with the orders coming in constantly and its business strong as always. Mr. Pedraza announced that a new mobile product, much like a notebook, is currently in development and will soon be released, but he refused to provide any other details.

The trials are expected to last for a while and many already see Apple as the winner of both. Still, there are several issues that could be brought up in court and put Apple up against the wall when it comes to its business practices. The question now is how will Apple prepare its defense. As soon as the official response is released, we will surely update the story.