Lodsys Responds To In-App Purchasing Patent Controversy

An anonymous reader writes "Last week, a heretofore unknown company named Lodsys sent FedEx packages to a number of independent iOS developers informing them that their use of in-app purchasing infringed on valid patents they owned. Now Lodsys has publicly responded to a number of issues/questions levied at them over the past few days."

Comments

One question they did not answer

[Jailbrekr]

"So why do you think you should profit from something so painfully obvious? This is a natural extension of shareware so why is this unique?"

Re:One question they did not answer

[chemicaldave]

Because they already paid the inventor for the patents. They purchased the cake, realized later that it's actually a shit sandwich, and now they need to make some money.

Re:One question they did not answer

[mellon]

Who cares why they think they should profit from something so obvious? Why do foxes think they should profit from rabbits' foraging? It's a meaningless question. They are just trying to feed themselves, in a way that rabbits might argue is immoral, but that no fox would agree is.

The real question is, when are we going to stop letting foxes gnaw at our bellies and fight back?

Re:One question they did not answer

[Omnifarious]

They did answer that question, rather obliquely.

Starting in 1988, Dan Abelow invented, put in significant amounts of his time, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in patent filing, prosecution lawyer fees, and maintenance fees to the US Patent Office to create the patent portfolio.

Clearly, someone who spent so much money at the patent office deserves a return on their investment. That's what the patent office is for after all, blatant extortion over things anybody would've thought of given half a brain.

There are some kinds of cleverness that seem simple when you learn the idea, but weren't obvious before the idea was known. And whether or not you think that sort of cleverness should be rewarded with a patent, this isn't that sort of cleverness. This is patenting the bleeding obvious.

Re:One question they did not answer

[Lumpy]

first you have to get rid of all the corrupt pawns that were put in place at the USPTO that rubber stamp everything in sight. Once you get competent and honest people in there 90% of all software patents will be invalidated.

Re:One question they did not answer

[gstoddart]

So why do you think you should profit from something so painfully obvious?

Well, like any patent ... to actually read this one it's anything but obvious.

It's 79 (or so) points of an 'invention' involving ... well, 'evaluating a commodity' is the closest I could find to any useful noun, and then a bunch of subsequent claims which say various things like "claim n-1 but in fabulous pink".

I'm not a patent attorney (or, any kind of attorney) ... this could have been describing a metaphysical system to measure karma ... who the hell knows what it actually says. It's so convoluted into legalese as to be incomprehensible. It bamboozled the USPTO into approving it, and apparently they did several patent extensions/refilings/amendments ... which, as I recall, effectively reset the clock and the patent stays in the queue but gets back dated to the original date.

So, he came up with a vague idea, and spent literally years tweaking it endlessly to get through the system ... all the while, people were independently creating his 'idea', but he got to keep his work back dated to the original filing.

Of course, the USPTO are morons, and their rules say that say that once they've validated a patent, you have to act like it's legit, and that becomes the law of the land. Trying to overturn a stupid and pointless patent is exceedingly difficult.

Sadly, they now have a patent which covers ... well, it's so vague, it probably covers things we haven't even identified yet. Maybe even the stock market since it's mostly talking about valuation and distribution of commodities.

This is no way to run a legal system.

Re:One question they did not answer

[sqldr]

yeah.. we stop stop wasting people's times with frivolous death threats and actually MURDER the bastards! :-)

Re:One question they did not answer

[Omnifarious]

It wasn't obvious in 1988 because a confluence of technologies didn't exist to make it trivial. Coming up with an idea that's not obvious because its completely impractical and then suing people once it does become practical and they unwittingly implement it is ridiculous.

Re:One question they did not answer

[calzones]

or do you think that inventors shouldn't be allowed to sell patents?

BINGO.

If you set out to patent an invention, you should only be able to profit from patent protection if you actually execute on the patented invention, or if you are waiting to figure out how to execute (waiting on investors, waiting on cheaper technology, etc) and someone else comes along and commercially releases an invention that trespasses on it.

Selling a patent should be worthless unless you are selling it as part of a business that is actively involved in commercially executing / production on that very patent. In which case the entire patent + production bundle exchange hands.

The way it should be: If you are unable to execute on a patented invention then you are SOL unless someone else decides to trespass on it. If you invent something and patent, your only hopes of getting paid are either executing or suing someone who violates your patent before you are able to execute.

In short, inventing something with no known means of executing on it, including the inability to raise investment capital to execute on it should be a worthless enterprise and unworthy of your time and money to patent. Let someone else patent it who can execute on it or who at least thinks they can and is willing to go unpaid on their patent.

Most revealing section

[d3ac0n]

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.

One question though

[Nidi62]

Assuming this patent is valid(playing devil's advocate here), what would it mean to Apple's demands that apps allow for in-app purchases(that Apple takes a cut from)? Apple would essentially be requiring developers to use and therefore have to license this idea, and then pay the Apple royalties on top of that, would it not? Seems like this would be bad for Apple, as it would drive more people away from iOS and the app store, which would mean fewer fees and royalties for Apple.

And yet.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Their responses are all - naturally - based on the assumption that their claims are valid. However, they have yet to explain how their patent -- which specifically encompasses a method of providing feedback to content creators from content consumers... has relevance to an in-app upgrade purchase. Nothing of the sort is referenced in the patent. The suggestion that such a purchase is a form of feedback is specious at best: the customer is offering no suggestions for improving or changing the product (the common example specified in the patent itself), but is rather paying continue using or unlock already-existing functionality.