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Maybe Google doesn't have a license to the patent in question ?

It does, as does Microsoft.

It's great that Apple is defending the devs. It's nice to see a patent troll get beat down, but it's not much of a victory when they already got their money for this completely obvious and bogus patent.

Here's a list of their patents. They keep calling these "inventions" and the guy listed on the patents (Dan Abelow) is called a "prolific inventor" but after reading the patents he just seems like an opportunist who managed to get a couple blatantly obvious ideas through the patent system.

Full text of Apple's letter to Lodsys:

BY EMAIL AND FIRST-CLASS MAIL

May 23, 2011

Mark Small
Chief Executive Officer
Lodsys, LLC
[Address information removed]

Dear Mr. Small:

I write to you on behalf of Apple Inc. ("Apple") regarding your recent notice letters to application developers ("App Makers") alleging infringement of certain patents through the App Makers' use of Apple products and services for the marketing, sale, and delivery of applications (or "Apps"). Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license. There is no basis for Lodsys' infringement allegations against Apple's App Makers. Apple intends to share this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to defend Apple's license rights.

Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple's license and the way Apple's products work, I expect that the additional information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outstanding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats to Apple's customers and partners.

First, Apple is licensed to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio. As Lodsys itself advertises on its website, "Apple is licensed for its nameplate products and services." See http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html (emphasis in original). Under its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.

Second, while we are not privy to all of Lodsys's infringement contentions because you have chosen to send letters to Apple's App Makers rather than to Apple itself, our understanding based on the letters we have reviewed is that Lodsys's infringement allegations against Apple's App Makers rest on Apple products and services covered by the license. These Apple products and services are offered by Apple to the App Makers to enable them to interact with the users of Apple productsâ"such as the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and the Apple iOS operating systemâ"through the use or Apple's App Store, Apple Software Development Kits, and Apple Application Program Interfaces ("APIs") and Apple servers and other hardware.

The illustrative infringement theory articulated by Lodsys in the letters we have reviewed under Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 is based on App Makers' use of such licensed Apple products and services. Claim 1 claims a user interface that allows two-way local interaction with the user and elicits user feedback. Under your reading of the claim as set out in your letters, the allegedly infringing acts require the use of Apple APIs to provide two-way communication, the transmission of an Apple ID and other services to permit access for the user to the App store, and the use of Apple's hardware, iOS, and servers.

Claim 1 also claims a memory that stores the results of the user interaction and a communication element to carry those results to a central location. Once again, Apple provides, under the infringement theories set out in your letters, the physical memory in which user feedback is stored and, just as importantly, the APIs that allow transmission of that user feedback to and from the App Store, over an Apple server, using Apple hardware and software. Indeed, in the notice letters to App Makers that we have been privy to, Lodsys itself relies on screenshots of the App Store to purportedly meet this claim element.

Finally, claim 1 claims a component that manages the results from different users and collects those results at the central location. As above, in the notice letters we have seen, Lodsys uses screenshots that expressly identify the App Store as the entity that purportedly collects and manages the results of these user interactions at a central location.

Thus, the technology that is targete

Valid point - and something they make it easy to do, apparently: http://www.lodsys.com/our-patents.html At least based on the description (and I know you can't really go by that, but I don't have time to do the same digging I did for the first one - maybe someone else can) they're not immediately/obviously related.

Here is the most revealing section of the "answer" given"

http://www.lodsys.com/1/post/2011/05/q-what-is-dan-abelows-involvement-is-intellectual-ventures-behind-lodsys-or-controlling-lodsys-in-some-way.html

For those that don't want to read the section, allow me to sum up: Some guy named Dan invested a crapload of time patenting things he had no intention of making.

Most garage inventors spend a crapload of time (and money) inventing and patenting things that they have no intention of making. Instead, they sell the patent to companies that will make the invention. Take that away, and you're essentially saying that only large companies with large manufacturing arms should ever be able to get a patent, and small inventors had best seek employment at one of them if they want to earn anything.

Here is the most revealing section of the "answer" given"

http://www.lodsys.com/1/post/2011/05/q-what-is-dan-abelows-involvement-is-intellectual-ventures-behind-lodsys-or-controlling-lodsys-in-some-way.html

For those that don't want to read the section, allow me to sum up: Some guy named Dan invested a crapload of time patenting things he had no intention of making. those patents were resold a couple times until they landed in the hands of a Patent Troll company who set up multiple smaller companies with the expressed intention of Patent trolling.

Yep. It's every bit as obnoxious and evil as you thought it was.