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Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

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Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#71

Post by schrototo »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #68
schrototo wrote: post #9

"But for an app developer to take a year or two to write an application and to see money from the app, is good fortune built on top of the contributions of the entire shared ecosystem, including independent inventor’s patent outputs such as Abelow’s." [1] Oh give me a fucking break. Yeah, us developers would be utterly lost without the exciting "inventions" of Abelow and Lodsys LLC. [1] http://www.lodsys.com/1/post/2…

The bigger issue, is that the current 'in app purchase' system is mandated by Apple to be the only way purchases can be made for your app. Apple licensed this technology, mandated it on it's developers, then failed to mention that it required a separate fee to be paid to a third party for use. How is this not getting more notice? Lodsys is evil, no doubt, but what Apple did right there is shady as heck.

I can't imagine that Apple would willfully put its entire app ecosystem at risk like that.

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#72

Post by mattdeboard »

stcredzero wrote: post #15
ZeSmith wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent trolling is a highly effective business model, but it has to make no sense in order to work.

Patent trolling...it has to make no sense in order to work. No, it just has to make no sense in order to make tech news. Otherwise, it would be something like: "NEWSFLASH! Perfectly sensible licensing deal!"

If it's perfectly reasonable, then I'd say it's not trolling.

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#73

Post by [deleted] »

mattdeboard wrote: post #72
stcredzero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent trolling...it has to make no sense in order to work. No, it just has to make no sense in order to make tech news. Otherwise, it would be something like: "NEWSFLASH! Perfectly sensible licensing deal!"

If it's perfectly reasonable, then I'd say it's not trolling.

[deleted]

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#74

Post by stcredzero »

mattdeboard wrote: post #72
stcredzero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent trolling...it has to make no sense in order to work. No, it just has to make no sense in order to make tech news. Otherwise, it would be something like: "NEWSFLASH! Perfectly sensible licensing deal!"

If it's perfectly reasonable, then I'd say it's not trolling.

So then, "Patent trolling, it has to be unreasonable to exist."

This shows differences in generational understanding of words. "Trolling" in this case predates the widespread use with regards to Internet behavior and actually refers to fishing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)

Just as trolling attempts to mimic a real school of fish, patent trolling attempts to mimic the legitimate licensing of productive patents. The reasonableness of the "bait" is entirely up to those doing the trolling. (And is largely subjective, which perhaps highlights a fundamental weakness of the current patent system.)

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#75

Post by bigiain »

surfingdino wrote: post #7

If we accept this kind of shit, there will soon be hundreds of leeches asking for their share of our money. And then even the most wealthy developers will feel the pain. I say squash those bugs early. If Apple, Google, and MS pay, they are stupid.

Reminds me of this post from yesterday:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2551436

What was written as fiction, is actually happening in real life. We've made defending against frivolous patent claims expensive enough that someone with a broad enough patent can nickel and dime a large enough group of people hoping many of them will say "0.575%? Fuck it, I'll just pay..."

It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the long run...

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#76

Post by bigiain »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #68
schrototo wrote: post #9

"But for an app developer to take a year or two to write an application and to see money from the app, is good fortune built on top of the contributions of the entire shared ecosystem, including independent inventor’s patent outputs such as Abelow’s." [1] Oh give me a fucking break. Yeah, us developers would be utterly lost without the exciting "inventions" of Abelow and Lodsys LLC. [1] http://www.lodsys.com/1/post/2…

The bigger issue, is that the current 'in app purchase' system is mandated by Apple to be the only way purchases can be made for your app. Apple licensed this technology, mandated it on it's developers, then failed to mention that it required a separate fee to be paid to a third party for use. How is this not getting more notice? Lodsys is evil, no doubt, but what Apple did right there is shady as heck.

Makes their recent destruction of competing iOS ebook apps even more insidious...

"We'll require you to sell everything via in app purchases at 30% commission to us, even though we know the industry standard gross margin comes out to exactly that 30% we're going to take off you. Oh, and we're not going to tell you about the patent we've got a licence for which means you're going to owe somebody else another 0.575% as well. Good luck making a living on that."

Thanks Apple... You're making the decision about whether to invest my time in iOS app development for my clients a lot easier... HTML5 mobile webapps FTW...

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#77

Post by caf »

It seems to me that with this:

"It is all too easy to look back with 18.5 years of hindsight, and knowledge of how the market has evolved, and say ``of course this is how everyone is going to do it'' or ``the patents are too broad.''"

...Lodsys are actually putting forward an effective argument against long-lived software patents. It didn't become obvious because of the disclosure of the "invention" in this patent - it became independently obvious through the progression of the start of the art. 20+ year patents certainly shouldn't be granted on "inventions" that would have become obvious anyway within a fraction of that time.

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#78

Post by watmough »

ynniv wrote: post #45
reitzensteinm wrote: post #11

I've been kicking an idea around in my head for a while, although I've got no idea if it's viable or not. But it seems like it could put a stop to this kind of a thing. Basically, it would be a non profit organization that accepts donations of patents by hackers, and uses them to sue only companies that themselves have used patents offensively. Blatant patent trolls could also become targeted for life at future busin…

Getting a patent is annoying enough (> 5 years of waiting and prodding a cube worker) and expensive enough (tens of $k) to kill most altruistic patent seeking. People are motivated to get them by a return on their investment, not the happy notion that the world is marginally less bad.

"People are motivated to get them by a return on their investment, not the happy notion that the world is marginally less bad."

I've always understood that as well as restricting other companies from competing with a patent holder, there is also an element of "mutually assured destruction" which would potentially allow negotiation and cross-licensing with companies asserting a patent. Didn't SUN maintain patents for exactly this process?

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#79

Post by ryanhuff »

farmer_ted wrote: post #42
nh wrote: post #16

patent in question: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

This patent describes a system for interactively polling users of a system about their preferences and/or opinions regarding that system's features. The stated intent is to enable users to provide feedback to potentially inform the creator of the system in making decisions on feature enhancements. As with all of these stupid software patents, once you read the details (i.e. beyond the summary), it becomes more appare…

On the surface, it sounds more applicable to netflix and amazon, and their recommendation engines.

Re: Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers

#80

Post by wging »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #11

I've been kicking an idea around in my head for a while, although I've got no idea if it's viable or not. But it seems like it could put a stop to this kind of a thing. Basically, it would be a non profit organization that accepts donations of patents by hackers, and uses them to sue only companies that themselves have used patents offensively. Blatant patent trolls could also become targeted for life at future busin…

What's the law on preferential protection of your patents?

With copyrights and/or trademarks, I think there's something like losing the rights if you fail to defend them. So people with legitimate, inoffensive uses for things have been quashed because of corporate policy on potentially profitable legal fictions.

edit: Whoa, forgot to complete the thought. The point is, you could lose if you end up just going after the people you don't like, leaving everyone from Apple to Microsoft to Zynga free to use your patents without so much as a licensing fee or even a piece of paper saying they can.

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