“They seem to be effectively claiming the rights to in-app purchase, but going after me, not Apple,” James Thomson, developer of PCalc, wrote on Twitter. Thomson has alluded to Lodsys’ involvement but not confirmed it outright. Other developers confirmed Lodsys’ involvement to the Guardian and MacRumors.
Lodsys is no stranger to legal attacks against big companies. In February, Lodsys filed patent lawsuits against Brother, Canon, HP, Lexmark, Hulu, Lenovo, Motorola, Novell, Samsung and Trend Micro.
It’s not clear whether Apple has already licensed the relevant patents. The Website of Dan Abelow, who invents patents and uses Lodsys to license them, lists Apple as a licensee, but he told the Guardian that he doesn’t know which companies licensed the patents in this particular case.
In any case, Apple will probably want to get involved sooner than later. Not only could early settlements by app developers come back to haunt Apple in a future lawsuit, it could also make the App Store seem less hospitable to small-scale programmers, who are increasingly relying on “freemium” business models. Thomson said on Twitter that he’s reached out to Apple’s legal department for guidance, but there’s no official word from Apple on the matter.
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