In-App Purchasing Patent ? Apple Legal Investigating the Issue ...

Late last week, several independent iOS developers woke up to a bad surprise, as a company named Lodsys threatened to sue them over the use of in-app purchasing mechanisms, which are supposedly covered by patents owned by the company. Earlier today, another wave of legal notices from Lodsys hit several indie iOS developers, including development shops such as Iconfactory, which is behind the Twitterrific app.

While Lodsys claims that its request is valid, Apple?s legal department finally decided to investigate the issue, as after all, if iOS devs start to pony up to be able to legally use Apple?s in-app purchases mechanisms, it would most likely mean the end of it.

According to The Guardian, Apple is expected to come back to its developers 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.

Lodsys?s actions have sparked an outcry amongst iOS developers, as according to the company, while Apple and others have licensed its technology, the license does not cover third-party software. As a result, Lodsys is trying to collect royalties directly from iOS developers as well.

Lodsys is currently asking iOS devs using in-app purchases to give 0.575 percent of their U.S. revenue to the company ? a fairly low amount, but enough to tick off most devs, who have no choice but to use in-app purchases mechanisms in order to sell anything from their apps, per the iOS Developer Program License Agreement.

Source: http://www.padgadget.com/2011/05/17/in-app-purchasing-patent-apple-legal-investigating-the-issue/

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