Apple wades in to defend developers

Swings lawyers at Lodsys

Apple is wading into the patent row between Lodsys and seven Apple application developers.

Lodsys is demanding a royalty payment from developers for a patent it claims to own. The patent relates to in-app purchasing.

Apple is not disputing this but insists that it has correctly licensed the patents in question and therefore app developers, who in turn pay Apple, are entitled to use them. Lodsys disputes that the license Apple signed covers third parties.

Apple has already written to Lodsys but is now seeking leave to intervene in the case.

It has filed a Motion to Intervene with the US District Court of Eastern Texas - Florian Mueller has the details and the documents on his blog.

Lodsys is not limiting itself to Apple developers - it has also written to Android developers it accuses of similar infringement. Will Google take similar action to protect its developers? ®