According to The Guardian, Apple is "actively investigating" the recent controversy that has seen patent holding firm Lodsys targeting small iOS developers with notices of patent infringement and giving them 21 days to purchase licenses for technology related to in app purchase and upgrade links within apps. The company is also said to be preparing a response to be issued later this week.
Apple's legal department is understood to be "actively investigating" claims by Lodsys, a patent holding company based in Texas, to have a claim against iPhone and iPad developers who use in-app purchase systems.
So far Lodsys has served papers on about a dozen iOS developers who it says are infringing its patent 10/732,102, which it bought in 2004 from the inventor, who filed it in the 1990s, covering user interaction over a network.
Apple is not expected to respond to the claims, which have been passed to it by affected developers, until later this week.
At least one of the affected developers had reached out to Apple's legal department immediately after receiving the notice, seeking advice on how to respond to the claims and whether Apple had any position on the situation. It has been unclear, however, whether Apple would take up an active role on the issue, given Lodsys' claims that Apple, along with Google and Microsoft, already has a license for the technology for its own apps.
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Word of Apple's investigation into the matter comes as Lodsys continues to target developers with notices, as Talos Tsui of The Iconfactory sent out a Tweet a short time ago sharing that his company has just been "Lodsysed". It is unclear, however, whether this is a fresh batch of notices or if stragglers from the original round of mailings are still coming through.
Top Rated Comments
Release the kraken!
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Apple already pays for a license of this patent from these ******s.
Lodsys is trying to double dip, by going after the individual developer using in-app purchase. Big Mistake.
Opinion: Apple shouldn't pay this extortionist outfit one penny in the first place. Who has a right to patent buying things? No one.
Developers are legally between a rock (Lodsys) and a hard place (Apple), even though the infringing IP is provided by Apple, not by developers (developers use Apple's API to infringe the patent). I'm sure if some developers settled, Apple would give a bye, but right now this is an ugly situation that is creating a decent amount of fear between iOS developers.
As an iOS developer, it's good to see Apple letting everyone know they're looking out for their developer community.
That could reduce patent trolls and still keep active inventors protected.