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Lodsys Agrees to Dismiss Patent Case Against Small Developer for a Charitable Donation
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LOL, my thoughts exactly! Somebody with deep pockets really should get medieval on their asses. Or, in the absence of a meaningful patent law reform perhaps small developers should join up and form some kind of fund with membership fees funding legal defense of members against patent trolls.
This is so illustrative of how broken the US patent system is. Junk patents based on pure, simplistic nonsense get awarded, and the only way of invalidating them (aside from rare presidential intervention) is to pay for six figures and up worth of legal representation? Look at all the companies that are forced to relent and pay royalties because the system is stacked in favor of bad patents. They aren't paying royalties because they accept the validity of the patents; they pay them because the whole system is a crock.
The US Patent Office needs to take the initiative and assemble a series of boards comprised of unbiased members of the scientific community who can go in, look at existing patents in their area of specialty, and invalidate in one shot any that don't pass scientific muster. It shouldn't take court cases to fix this.
The US Patent Office needs to take the initiative and assemble a series of boards comprised of unbiased members of the scientific community who can go in, look at existing patents in their area of specialty, and invalidate in one shot any that don't pass scientific muster. It shouldn't take court cases to fix this.
The charity must be owned by Lodsys.
Scum of the earth.
When is the Obama administration going to take these guys down?
Scum of the earth.
When is the Obama administration going to take these guys down?
They're greedy bullies, who count on intimidating small developers into ponying up, so they can line their pockets with proceeds from patents they have already collected on, from APPLE.
They can't sue APPLE, who have already licensed the technology from LODSYS. What APPLE can do, and has stated they would do, is back up the independent developers in their fight with LODSYS, but many, due to lack of resources no doubt, have already caved to the bullies, and settled.
Messed up patents in the US
Here (in Europe) there are no software patents. Software are ok with copywright. Unfortunately there is strong ( and in my opinion moronic) lobbying by someone from the US (I guess the patent-trolls) to put it in place also here.
I think they have even had some progress in the UK but not in the rest of the EU.
Hmmm... I wonder if there is a way to create a European shell for small American ISVs that can act as a buffer to stick it to all American patent-trolls.
Maybe I should talk to a lawyer over here to set something up...
/hpe
Here (in Europe) there are no software patents. Software are ok with copywright. Unfortunately there is strong ( and in my opinion moronic) lobbying by someone from the US (I guess the patent-trolls) to put it in place also here.
I think they have even had some progress in the UK but not in the rest of the EU.
Hmmm... I wonder if there is a way to create a European shell for small American ISVs that can act as a buffer to stick it to all American patent-trolls.
Maybe I should talk to a lawyer over here to set something up...
/hpe
The mistake was caving into big business and allowing software patents.
Especially, they shouldn't be decided by juries made up of non-programmers.
Compared to what the government and app stores take, Lodsys is peanuts.
If a developer sells $1,000 worth of in-app purchases, then about...
- $300 goes to the app store owner. (30% fee)
- $150 goes to taxes. (15% bracket)
- $4 goes to Lodsys. (0.575% of remaining)
So out of ~$454 in expenses, $4 goes to Lodsys. A large coffee. No wonder many devs just give in and pay.
To me, it's the app store royalty that's the real rip-off. No way do they deserve 30% of an in-app purchase. That's extortion, because the developer is not allowed to use any other payment method.
