A little under two weeks ago news broke of a patent troll company by the name of Lodsys LLC that had begun sending out letters to iOS devs informing them that they were violating various patents in regards to in-app purchasing and demanding a cut of revenue. Naturually, iOS developers were worried as many of them are small-time outfits whom don’t have the resources to fight larger companies in the courtroom. As such, they turned to Apple for help. Luckily, Apple responded and basically told Lodsys to “beat it”. Will Google do the same for Android developers now that Lodsys has apparently set their sights on them?
An ongoing Google Groups discussion details Lodsys’ attempts to extra money from Android developers as well.
We recently implemented in-app purchases for our Android application and several weeks later we received a letter from Lodsys, claiming that we infringed on their patents.
Have any other Android developers out there been sent a letter? Has Google taken any action on this issue yet? Has Google given direction to any developers that have been hit by this? We are obviously a small shop and are not financially capable of defending ourselves over a litigation.
Google is an equally large company that is unlikely to let its developers be pushed around by some useless patent troll looking to make a living by suing the defenseless. With that said, Google has yet to respond. Check back soon for the latest…
Via: Macrumors
