What you said is true but irrelevant. The reality is that individual patent holders have no chance of succeeding in suing the likes of Apple. On the other hand, large tech companies have policies in place where they will design products irrespective of the existing patents. They specifically instruct their engineers not to do patent analysis because violating patent knowingly costs a lot more than doing so "inadvertently". Can't blame these companies either. They have to deliver products and with current patent system they would not go far if they tried to play by the rules. So, inventors have two options: to keep the patent and try to get their money by suing, say, Apple (because Apple is not going to license anything until forced by court) or sell their patents for fixed reward. And BTW, Apple holds way more patents that they bought than Lodsys does (6000 patents purchased from Northern Telecom in just one deal) and all those patents are used primarily for the purpose of suing and counter-suing other companies.
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Lodsys Publishes May 2011 Legal Response to Apple's Challenge
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What you said is true but irrelevant. The reality is that individual patent holders have no chance of succeeding in suing the likes of Apple. On the other hand, large tech companies have policies in place where they will design products irrespective of the existing patents. They specifically instruct their engineers not to do patent analysis because violating patent knowingly costs a lot more than doing so "inadvertently". Can't blame these companies either. They have to deliver products and with current patent system they would not go far if they tried to play by the rules. So, inventors have two options: to keep the patent and try to get their money by suing, say, Apple (because Apple is not going to license anything until forced by court) or sell their patents for fixed reward. And BTW, Apple holds way more patents that they bought than Lodsys does (6000 patents purchased from Northern Telecom in just one deal) and all those patents are used primarily for the purpose of suing and counter-suing other companies.
Yeah and this is where lodsys will fall short. They can talk about the apps all day long but the actual in app purchase is entirely handled by apple as the payment processor. Apple has a license to do this and apple and apple alone is the only one managing payments. Developers get paid by apple. This would be like suing everyone who takes credit cards for swipe transactions even though the payment processor has a license.
Lodsys wants to make it about the app but it is not about the app it is about payment processing which is one of many services apple gets paid to handle for developers. All the mumbo jumbo about business partners and pass through liability is irrelevant.
I think apple can easily make a case that payment processing is handled outside the application itself.
First APPLE already PAID for a license BEFORE adding the technology to the OFFICIAL DEVELOPER SDK.
THAT is what Lodsys is splitting hairs over. Apple cleverly paid up before they tipped the information they were going to have IAP BUILT-IN to the Apps. Lodsys is coming back saying DEVELOPERS using Apple's licensed IAP servers are not themselves licensed because they are not "business partners".
There are several problems... First, Apple seems to believe they paid to cover the IAP servers. So Developers USING the apple API are using Apple's licensed servers, and APPLE's code to access those servers.
Second, The DEVELOPER doesn't actually take the payments, so they are not performing ALL of the patented steps. Patents require you to perform specific steps. If DEVELOPERS are not performing ALL the steps in their aps then they probably are not infringing.
Basically they are splitting hairs on Apple's agreement WITH DEVELOPERS that Apple does not share patents with them. Except those contract clauses are always at APPLE's DISCRESSION if Apple negotiated a license with a third party to cover use of Apple's software then developers are covered. Apple's statement to DEVELOPERS has no bearing on their contract with Lodsys... Which is convienently blacked out.
This is a similar strategy to the MP3 days.. Where after all the big players paid up to the Patemt cartels, owners of the patents used legal loops to remove their patents from being oncluded in the payments already made. Lodsys realized Apple's lawyers "got them first" and are now trying to remake Apple's negotiation because its worth a lot more money now.
Ok, stupid question perhaps, but if app developers are not Apple's "business partners" then are they not Apple's "customers"? Seems like in Lodsys's own words they're licensed to use the patent.
This sounds like just the kind of case that gives lawyers a bad name.
This sounds like just the kind of case that gives lawyers a bad name.
The point of the patent system is to foster innovation in the market by giving time for the inventor of an idea to make a product and bringing it to market, rather than simply rewarding someone for having an idea.
If someone has an idea, doesn't make a product, and sells it to another company that also doesn't make a product, how is it innovation? How does society benefit from hoarding of ideas? Why should taxpayers pay for a system to simply reward those who thought up, but never implemented, an idea?
This is why people want the patent system reformed or abolished - nobody benefits from the hoarding of ideas. And no, level headed Apple fans aren't in favour of Apple suing over patents either.
Interesting idea
You know, they might be right. Apple describes the relationship with developers as "arms-length." If that's the case, why would Apple's patent license cover anyone else except Apple?
That sounds like Apple's lawyers forgot that they were licensing it for their developer community instead of just for Apple, which would be consistent with how lawyers think. It also means Apple overpaid tremendously for their license, since someone thought it covered everyone (which presumably costs more).
You know, they might be right. Apple describes the relationship with developers as "arms-length." If that's the case, why would Apple's patent license cover anyone else except Apple?
That sounds like Apple's lawyers forgot that they were licensing it for their developer community instead of just for Apple, which would be consistent with how lawyers think. It also means Apple overpaid tremendously for their license, since someone thought it covered everyone (which presumably costs more).
Apple need to step in here and essentially pay off Lodsys. You cant tell your developers 'hey its ok for you to do this' and then let them get in trouble for it. Obviously Apple cant really intervene in the Lodsys <=> developer side of things, but if they had a real 'global' license for the patents that covered developers, this wouldn't have happened. Clearly someone at Apple has messed up here and not double checked what they were getting out of the deal.
Bingo. That's what these terrible companies exist to do. They have no legitimate purpose whatsoever except to exploit a broken legal system for personal profit.
Correct. Patents protect property rights-- which is why we can say Apple owns iOS.
But in this case, the company has little basis for their claims. Apple's agreements with the developers have no bearing on the license agreement between Apple and Lodsys.
Further, I bet the odds are pretty good that Lodsys is wrong in their claims, but doesn't care because a lawsuit that would prove them wrong would cost a lot more than the license fee they're asking for. I consider this an attempt at fraud.
It's the attempted fraud that makes them bad, not that they own intellectual property and are seeking to exploit it.
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sooo.. one patent troll beats another patent trollsweet.. who has some popcorn ?
Yeah, cause Apple's never shipped an iPhone. Ever.
sooo.. one patent troll beats another patent troll
Apple isn't a patent troll. A patent troll is a company who's only economic product is lawsuits, while manufacturing no products or inventing anything.
The company Apple sued made a genuine effort to steal Apple's ideas, and they sued them based on Steve's moral principle that blatant theft of their design and trade dress is not acceptable. Samsung went as far as to make a knock off of nearly every aspect of Apple's products, from the box, to the charger to the earphones to the manual to bezel, to the spacing between the camera and the flash to the location and order of the label text on the back, to the materials, to the interface. Yes Apple used technicalities to get a judgment but you literally had a major company making a blatant knockoff of their products to the point where the angles and radiuses of some products were so identically they could only exist if someone actually measured Apple's products and then designed them or had the greatest coincidence in product design in history.
Lodsys doesn't actually make a product, and they are literally a company of lawyers not protecting anything but just trying to make a quick buck.
I think Apple needs to step in and get the Lodsys patent invalidated. And then Lodsys should be forced to refund all fees they earned off of this joke of a patent.
Oh please
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What?! I do! That's what makes IAPCracker the ultimate cheat tool for most games
Seriously though, trialware is better than having to buy an app you know hardly anything about and hoping that it's good. A lot of apps use IAPs for disabling ads, which is MUCH cleaner than buying a different app. Sure many developers abuse IAPs with things like buying points for a game, but you have to be an idiot to do that anyway.
A lot of terrible apps where you have to buy every IAP to make it functional would end up being a paid app if there were no IAPs.
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What a "load" of ****! But, then again, I don't mind seeing all these "freemium" apps gone!
What?! I do! That's what makes IAPCracker the ultimate cheat tool for most games
Seriously though, trialware is better than having to buy an app you know hardly anything about and hoping that it's good. A lot of apps use IAPs for disabling ads, which is MUCH cleaner than buying a different app. Sure many developers abuse IAPs with things like buying points for a game, but you have to be an idiot to do that anyway.
A lot of terrible apps where you have to buy every IAP to make it functional would end up being a paid app if there were no IAPs.
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I don't think Lodsys hired anyone of skill to patent vague BS patents like this. And as someone else said, it's a "shell company".
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Just going to toss this out there: http://www.lodsys.com/contact-us.html
WRT in-app purchases, developers are clearly Apple's customers in this situation. Apple charges developers a 30% fee for the service of processing payments for purchases to them on Apple's servers. The fee that developers pay clearly identifies them as customers, much as merchants are customers of credit card providers, who similarly charge them a percentage of purchases in order to provide payment processing services. Because all of the transactions occur on Apple's servers, Apple's legally obtained license for this patent should clearly apply.
Lodsys's arguments are a bit like arguing that even though a radio station has paid for the rights to broadcast a song, the listening audience should also have to pay a licensing fee for the privilege of listening to that song. The only way that LodSys can win this is if it hoodwinks a jury with so much legalese that the jury is unable to comprehend the arguments of the case, or if developers capitulate to Lodsys because arguing the case in court is more costly than licensing the patent would be. But I hope they don't, because it will just further encourage this kind of bullying.
Don't get me wrong, Lodsys has a right to purchase patents and to license them to make a profit on its investment in intellectual property. What I do have a problem with is Lodsys clearly attempting to renege on its agreement with Apple after discovering how much money Apple and its customers (developers) would make off of in-app purchases. In addition, I have a problem with Lodsys attacking small developers over this issue, specifically because Lodsys knows that they are not financially in a position to make a strong legal defense for themselves. If Lodsys truly thought it was in the right, then it should have sued Apple, not the independent developers.
I also, as others, have problems with a system that would award a patent for clicking on a button within an application to make a purchase, particularly in the context of the prior art of iTunes allowing users to do just that, right from the day that the iTMS opened. Of course, Lodsys is not responsible for the failings of the patent system.
Is that why when I publish an app to the Nokia store I'm called a business partner? I saw it once somewhere in the depths of the writings and thought it was strange...
Putting patents into the hands of the highest bidder ensures that they go to the entity which values them most. That is basic capitalism.
And if patent holding companies refuse to license them, they make zero profits, so I'm not sure what the basis is for your last sentence.
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Of course not. The inventor makes its profit when it assigns the patent to the holding company. If the inventor was able to make more profits by licensing the invention to third parties, it would do so. But they are inventors, and they are not licencors. It is called division of labor, and it is the basis of civilization.
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No worries then. You cannot patent a time machine any more than you can patent a perpetual motion machine.
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They do not profit by suing. They are merely "made whole' by recovering what was stolen from them.
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If I use your song to make a movie soundtrack, I can be sued unless I license it. If I use your software without licensing it, I can be sued. This ain't rocket surgery.
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Naw. They want those who use their property to pay them. Simple as that.
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If that is true, then how did Apple license the patent?
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ISTM that each and every patent owned by a holding company was purchased from an inventor who thought that the sale amply rewarded them. If not, then why the heck would the inventor sell their patent?
Do you imagine that the inventors are victims? They liked the deal they got, or else they would have said "I want more money or i will refuse to sell".
Sheesh. This ain't rocket surgery.
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The dev is a vendor. Apple is the customer.
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If the devs use a patented invention without licensing it, then they are thieves.
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Apple also thought that they had paid to use the iPad trademark in China.
Oops!
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By that definition, Lodsys is NOT a patent troll, because they have a second "economic product". They license patents to third parties, like Apple.
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Unless Lodsys guaranteed that the patent was valid, what basis would Apple have to demand a refund?
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Except for the fact that there is no basis in copyright law for charging listeners. Other than that, maybe the situations are exactly the same. But given that, the situations bear no resemblance whatsoever.
Worth a listen. Lodsys, Oasis, NPE's that share an empty office just doing patent lawsuits. Just to summarize the linked blog "they (their parent company) are like a Mafia protection agency that offer insurance and do random takedowns to give their insurance value."
Lol, AAPL patent things that noone would even imagine to patent, like "rounded corners", or "bounce back effect" and dont tell me they "developed it"
Apple is another patent troll like all the tech/patent companies out there.
As long as patent law is plain stupid , allowing to patent things without prototype , then good luck
we will see more of that comming.With prototype law, most of stupid and blocking patents would be invalidated.
See apple patented a phone with rounded screen? where's the tech? on paper only cause apple tries to patent something they dont have (they dont even exist in screen developing/manufacturing business). This is just another example, especially when other companies already have that kind of screens.
What a "load" of ****! But, then again, I don't mind seeing all these "freemium" apps gone!
it wont be gone, all lodsys seeks is some revenue off the in-apps purchase so they can sustain their business