Lodsys Takes On Gaming Heavyweights Including Rovio, EA, and Atari in Patent Dispute

[hayesk]

Ah but thats not it at all, Lodsys didn't invent something either, they purchased the patent from someone else, who purchased it from the inventor.

Well, they purchased it from a guy who was the first to patent an obvious idea with little or no intellectual value.

Patent trolls exploit the fact that the patent office does not have the resources to properly research a patent application before granting the patent. As such, patents with little or no value are often granted. Patent trolls use these patents to wait until a rich company uses something even similar to the idea expressed in the patent and they sue, hoping for licensing, a settlement, or a court victory in East Texas.

That's the problem here - the patent office is a joke, and these scumbag trolls are taking advantage of it.

 

[KnightWRX]

Apple had a product. A product that was new, innovative, and blew the competition away. Lodsys have a patent, an idea, that could in theory be used by companies for products that they, not Lodsys, might want to bring to market. You can see the difference there, right?

The difference is Apple doesn't have a Patent on icon grids. Most of the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit is about trademarks and trade dress. The patent claims are not about look and feel and Samsung have a few patent counter-claims of their own.

The patents are just extra oil to make the fires burn better. The more crap you throw at an opponent in court, the more likely you're going to have something that sticks.

 

[aeaglex07]

Is that Apple is NOT getting sued here. Apple already licensed the technology. Who getting hurt here are small developers who believe they are covered by the Apple license. So please stop with the 'Apple fanboy-ism' bigotry.

thats the thing. Surely the developers are covered. why else would Lodsys have licensed these patents to Apple?


This will end up biting them in the a** LOL

 

[hayesk]

Yep...when Apple tried to claim they invented the "grid" layout, these boards were full of..."Hey, its business....gotta protect your brand"

So what? There will always be fanboys and there will always be haters. Ignore them and carry on with the actual discussion.

These "well if the shoe was on Apple's foot" nonsense comments are just as bad as the comments they refer to.

Back on topic, do you think the patent being sued over is valid and why? And do you believe Apple's license covers the developers and why? That's the topic at hand, not fanboy nonsense.

 

[KnightWRX]

thats the thing. Surely the developers are covered. why else would Lodsys have licensed these patents to Apple?

So Apple could use them in their own applications. What makes you think this is so obvious ? If it was obvious Lodsys' license to Apple also covered 3rd parties, we wouldn't be discussing this here.

Note also that developers not using IAP have been sent letters. These are guys that are just linking back to their full app in the app store from a lite app. This doesn't use any particular Apple framework to work. Are these guys also covered by Apple's license ?

Is anyone but Apple covered by Apple's license ?

Not something we'll decide here, nor something that is obvious at this point. This is just what Apple and the developers hope for.

 

[hayesk]

Exactly, I am an Apple fanboy and I think Lodsys is doing the right thing.

Really, you think this is a valid patent? Putting a button to buy the paid version or an add-on? You think this wasn't done before this patent? I remember Mac shareware from years ago that offered this feature. Long before the Lodsys patents were granted.

Or, do you think Apple's license doesn't cover third party developers then? Well why did Apple take out a license then? They don't have in-app upgrades and in-app purchases in their own software products?

 

[KnightWRX]

Really, you think this is a valid patent? Putting a button to buy the paid version or an add-on? You think this wasn't done before this patent? I remember Mac shareware from years ago that offered this feature. Long before the Lodsys patents were granted.

This is not what this patent is about, and the patent was filed somewhere around 1992. Read the actual premise and claims in the patent and you'll see that it is much more involved than that (discussed at length already here) and since it was filed in 1992, prior art is not easy to come by.

Not to mention just the Shareware screen offering a "paid" version is not enough here.

The problem is the patent is both old and was granted very late, making this one very hard to fight. As evident as it is today, back when it was filed, all this "Online" thing was quite new to the commercial world.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Finally - the big companies can bring their budgets and lawyers to bear on this company. It sucks that they went after the little people first.

 

[aeaglex07]

So Apple could use them in their own applications. What makes you think this is so obvious ? If it was obvious Lodsys' license to Apple also covered 3rd parties, we wouldn't be discussing this here.

Note also that developers not using IAP have been sent letters. These are guys that are just linking back to their full app in the app store from a lite app. This doesn't use any particular Apple framework to work. Are these guys also covered by Apple's license ?

Is anyone but Apple covered by Apple's license ?

Not something we'll decide here, nor something that is obvious at this point. This is just what Apple and the developers hope for.

Right but the app store is the delivery method, which is licensed. The developers are adhering to Apple's rules so this one definitely falls on Apple, not the developers.

 

[KnightWRX]

Right but the app store is the delivery method, which is licensed. The developers are adhering to Apple's rules so this one definitely falls on Apple, not the developers.

This is not about delivery. Again, read the patent claims if you really want to make educated comments on this. And your "definitely" doesn't hold until you have a judge issued decision on it. Until then, this could go either way.

Seriously, if you don't even know what this patent is about, why do you think you can say with 100% confidence that Apple's license covers 3rd parties ? You have yet to even grasp the patent's premise is about, much less its claims.

 

[tivoli2]

So? I didn't write premiere pro CS5 either but I bought the rights to it. Why would IP become invalid just because it bought and sold?

You didn't buy the rights to Premiere Pro CS5 - you purchased a license to use the software, which is very different. Your use of the software is governed by the license. The rights owner can sell a license to use the software. You, as a license holder, cannot.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Lodsys' patents just need to be invalidated, it's that simple. I strongly suspect they'll go after someone too big (or too many people) who will do just that.

 

[tlevier]

Boolean String?

Is it just me or does it seem to anyone that Lodsys' Patent basically gives them a patent to the use of Boolean and Boolean Strings?

 

[KnightWRX]

Is it just me or does it seem to anyone that Lodsys' Patent basically gives them a patent to the use of Boolean and Boolean Strings?

Nope, doesn't seem like it to me, since their patent is much more involved than that. It's about interaction and feedback from a user device to a central location. If I could achieve that with a simple Boolean value, then programming would be dead easy now would it ?

 

[aeaglex07]

This is not about delivery. Again, read the patent claims if you really want to make educated comments on this. And your "definitely" doesn't hold until you have a judge issued decision on it. Until then, this could go either way.

Seriously, if you don't even know what this patent is about, why do you think you can say with 100% confidence that Apple's license covers 3rd parties ? You have yet to even grasp the patent's premise is about, much less its claims.

actually the dispute is about delivery methods and if third parties are covered. Apple claims they are and Lodsys claims they are not.

And the fact that Lodsys admits they were in deep discussions with Apple over the patent uses leads me to believe they had an arrangement in place already. They waited until the App store exploded with revenue to go after developers. They are simply double dipping.

Its also funny reading Lodsys blog they basically admit they are going after the bigger companies for greed, using a hotel metaphor which isnt even relative. They are taking on more than they chew with some pretty strong, and false accusations.

this is going to get interesting. And hopefully we can eventually revise the system into a better one where patent trolls can't exploit common uses with vague wording.

If i were Apple i would simply disable IAP for a while and wait for this firm to go broke.

 

[unlinked]

what they did with the patent is to sue, not to protect something they make. That's the difference.

I do not see why people think a product should be required. A real invention should be however.

 

[KnightWRX]

actually the dispute is about delivery methods and if third parties are covered. Apple claims they are and Lodsys claims they are not.

The patent is not about delivery methods. Go read it. Apple claims that 3rd parties are covered, but not for delivery methods, it's for IAP and customer feedback from iOS devices back to the App Store.

So you can "actually" all you want, you're quite mislead on the actual claims and what constitutes infringment.

If i were Apple i would simply disable IAP for a while and wait for this firm to go broke.

This is not just about IAP. Developers that don't use IAP have also gotten notices of infringment. Look, I'll make it real simple, here is how the patent goes :

A customer device starts an interaction with the user. This interaction asks for feedback about the experience with the product. This feedback is then packaged and sent back to a central location.

This is the gist of it (the claims are much more complex than that). Lodsys now states that :

An iOS app presenting a page asking something like "Liked this app ? Click here for the full version/other apps by us!" is an interaction. The user clicking on the link is providing feedback, and the loading of the App Store page is sending back the positive feedback to the App Store.

They also claim this applies to IAP and to surveys.

Now you know. This is much more complicated than what you're hinting at.

 

[tomacsh]

US 7620565, where in Angry Birds?

This is claim 27.

"27. A tangible computer readable medium having stored thereon, computer executable instructions that, if executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising: monitoring a product for an occurrence in the product of a trigger event of a predefined plurality of trigger events, incrementing a counter corresponding to the trigger event upon detection of the occurrence of the trigger event in the product; displaying a user interface, configured to probe for information regarding a use of the product, if the counter exceeds a threshold; storing an input received from the user interface on a device; and transmitting the input to a server."

Sounds a lot like storing a high score or informing a user that they have leveled up. It would be nice if the complainant would indicate where in Angry Birds someone could find the offense.

the real problem is USPTO, they are allowing patents for ideas in relation to software. Ideas cannot be patented, only implementation of the idea. I have read a few software patents and none of them show an implementation. A matter of fact, I remember reading many years ago about software patents and at the time it was required that the publisher gave a listing of the major code fragments for the software to work. it did not have to be complete in totality but just the major components. I don't see that anymore. The article if I remember correctly related to the first version of Fox Pro 2.5 which had a new, extremely fast search engine. Fox Pro did not want to patent as they knew they would have to publish the code, so it was kept as a trade secret just like the Coca Cola formula.

 

[litchie]

Fox Pro did not want to patent as they knew they would have to publish the code, so it was kept as a trade secret just like the Coca Cola formula.

Amazing thing is how Coca Cola manage to keep it secret for a hundred years.

 

[gorgeousninja]

The difference is Apple doesn't have a Patent on icon grids. Most of the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit is about trademarks and trade dress. The patent claims are not about look and feel and Samsung have a few patent counter-claims of their own.

The patents are just extra oil to make the fires burn better. The more crap you throw at an opponent in court, the more likely you're going to have something that sticks.

True. Unrelated to the original post though. If you do want to go into the finer points of the Apple v Samsung dispute you wont find many people that legitimately don't see how Samsung have not only copied the grid layout but have gone as far as copying most of the icons. Some people even ridiculously brought that dreaded term 'generic'. The last bastion of the bankrupt.

 

[KnightWRX]

True. Unrelated to the original post though. If you do want to go into the finer points of the Apple v Samsung dispute you wont find many people that legitimately don't see how Samsung have not only copied the grid layout but have gone as far as copying most of the icons. Some people even ridiculously brought that dreaded term 'generic'. The last bastion of the bankrupt.

Apple v. Samsung is off-topic here. There's enough threads about it already. The icon grid is not a trademark claim, obviously, as icon grids have tons of use in the industry today and in the years going back to the invention of the mouse GUI. It's a trade dress claim.

 

[Steve's Barber]

provide online help, customer support, and tutorials
conduct online subscription renewals
provide for online purchasing of consumable supplies
survey users for their impressions of their products and services
assist customers to customize their products and services
display interactive online advertisements
collect information on how users actually use their products and services
sell upgrades or complimentary products
maintain products by providing users notice of available updates and assisting in the installation of those updates.

I'm trying to understand all of this patent infringement stuff. Why would Apple need to pay somebody to implement the things in the list above? What "technology" is patented? Is it some magical programmer's code?

 

[nerdo]

I know how software license works, thanks. It is used as example of rights being removed simply because you don't use something.

wil re-word it for license anal friends

Anyway, the point is: simply because me / you / we / whomever doesn't like the situation doesn't make patents or licenses invalid.

As for lodsys being a patent troll, I'm afraid that is for a judge to decide.

You didn't buy the rights to Premiere Pro CS5 - you purchased a license to use the software, which is very different. Your use of the software is governed by the license. The rights owner can sell a license to use the software. You, as a license holder, cannot.

 

[tivoli2]

I know how software license works, thanks. It is used as example of rights being removed simply because you don't use something.

wil re-word it for license anal friends

Sorry - forgot to add that the two aren't analogous, regardless.

 

[subsonix]

BTW, if someone knows any specific examples of prior art there's money to be made. http://ipwatchdog.com/2011/07/08/wanted-prior-art-to-invalidate-lodsys-patents/id=18006/

Apparently these patents where bought of another patent holding firm, which further indicate that Lodsys are trolls, IMO.