Apple legal issued a answer to Lodsys , the house trying to judder down iOS developers byforcing them to compensate to permit patents for in - app purchases . Apple ’s 900 word missive can fundamentally be summarized in two word : Get lost .
https://gizmodo.com/patent-firm-attacks-apples-heart-developers-5801675
The letter from Apple effectual ’s Bruce Sewell , obtain by Macworld , claims that Apple ’s licence of the Lodsys patent of invention claims also covers its developers who use the API to make in - app leverage , qualify the Lodsys nastygrams to developers a “ fundamental misapprehension . ” For a legal papers , it ’s surprisingly well-defined , and the message is unequivocal : Your claims are bullshit and Apple will go to bat for its developer .
I peculiarly make love that Sewall signs off “ very sincerely yours ” after such a fuck you of a varsity letter . It ’s a lesson more people should follow . Always be polite when you ’re bang up someone ’s dreams . The full text is below .
May 23 , 2011
Mark Small
Chief Executive Officer
Lodsys , LLC
Dear Mr. Small :
I write to you on behalf of Apple Inc. ( “ Apple ” ) regarding your recent notice letters to app developer ( “ App Makers ” ) alleging infringement of sure patent through the App Makers ’ use of Apple product and services for the marketing , sale , and bringing of app program ( or “ Apps ” ) . Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patent and the Apple App Makers are protect by that license . There is no base for Lodsys ’ misdemeanor allegation against Apple ’s App Makers . Apple intends to share this letter of the alphabet and the data set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to represent Apple ’s license rights .
Because I believe that your letters are based on a central misapprehension regarding Apple ’s license and the way Apple ’s products work , I expect that the extra entropy set out below will be sufficient for you to pull away your owing threat to the App Makers and stop and refrain from any further threats to Apple ’s customers and partners .
First , Apple is license to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio . As Lodsys itself advertises on its internet site , “ Apple is licence for its nameplate products and service . ” See http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html ( emphasis in original ) . Under its license , Apple is entitled to offer these licensed product and services to its customers and line of work partners , who , in turning , have the right wing to use them .
Second , while we are not secret to all of Lodsys ’s violation contentions because you have choose to commit letter of the alphabet to Apple ’s App Almighty rather than to Apple itself , our understanding based on the letters we have retrospect is that Lodsys ’s misdemeanor allegations against Apple ’s App manufacturer rest on Apple mathematical product and services incubate 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 products - such as the iPad , iPhone , iPod touch and the Apple iOS operating system - through the utilisation or Apple ’s App Store , Apple Software Development Kits , and Apple program Program Interfaces ( “ genus Apis ” ) and Apple servers and other hardware .
The illustrative infringement possibility articulated by Lodsys in the letter we have reviewed under Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No . 7,222,078 is based on App Makers ’ usance of such licensed Apple product and services . Claim 1 claim a user user interface that allows two - elbow room local fundamental interaction with the user and elicits drug user feedback . Under your reading of the claim as set out in your letter , the allegedly infringing deed ask the consumption of Apple APIs to put up two - path communicating , the transmitting of an Apple ID and other divine service to permit admittance for the user to the App computer storage , and the use of Apple ’s hardware , iOS , and server .
Claim 1 also take a memory that salt away the upshot of the user interaction and a communicating chemical element to expect those outcome to a key location . Once again , Apple provide , under the infringement theory set out in your letters , the physical memory in which exploiter feedback is stored and , just as importantly , the APIs that give up transmission of that substance abuser feedback to and from the App Store , over an Apple server , using Apple computer hardware and package . Indeed , in the notice letters to App Makers that we have been secluded to , Lodsys itself relies on screenshots of the App Store to purportedly meet this title constituent .
at long last , claim 1 arrogate a component that manages the results from different substance abuser and collects those answer at the central localisation . As above , in the placard letters we have view , Lodsys uses screenshots that expressly identify the App Store as the entity that supposedly pick up and wield the results of these exploiter interactions at a central location .
Thus , the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is applied science that Apple is expressly certify under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple ’s App Makers . These licensed products and services enable Apple ’s App Makers to communicate with terminal users through the use of Apple ’s own licensed hardware , computer software , APIs , memory board , server , and interfaces , including Apple ’s App Store . Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys ’ patents to provide such technology to its App Makers , the App Makers are entitled to practice this technology free from any infringement claim by Lodsys .
Through its threatened infringement claims against users of Apple ’s commissioned engineering , Lodsys is invoking letters patent police force to control the post - sale enjoyment of these licensed products and method . Because Lodsys ’s threat are based on the purchase or use of Apple products and Robert William Service licensed under the Agreement , and because those Apple ware and help , under the reading enunciate in your letters , only or well embody each of Lodsys ’s patent , Lodsys ’s threatened claims are barred by the doctrines of patent debilitation and first sale . As the Supreme Court has made clean , “ [ t]he authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent of invention exhausts the patent of invention holder ’s rights and prevents the patent holder from raise patent law to master postsale purpose of the article . ” Quanta Computer , Inc. v. LG Elecs . , Inc. , 553 U.S. 617 ( 2008 ) .
Therefore , Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers ’ habit of license Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent of invention .
Very really yours ,
Bruce Sewell
aged Vice President & General Counsel
Apple Inc.
Apple
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