Apple's Sewell hits back at Lodsys' patent claims

Comes to the defence of its development community

Apple has responded to claims from patent holder Lodsys that its third-party developers need to shell out for a licence, denouncing the company's legal threats as hogwash in a three-page letter.

Lodsys has been hassling developers who make apps for Apple's iOS platform for licensing fees, claiming that it holds four patents which are crucial to the very concept of mobile apps - and threatening legal action if the developers don't hand over a cut of their proceeds.

While it would be easy to dismiss Lodsys' actions as those of yet another patent troll, weight was lent to the company's claims when it announced that the patents are so watertight that Apple itself is a licensee, choosing to hand over a not-insignificant amount of cash so that its App Store would remain free from legal action.

The legal threats, sent almost exclusively to small development houses unlikely to be able to afford the legal advice required to take the case through the courts, left Lodsys branded "a troll" by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which claimed that Apple should end its silence and spring to the aid of its development community.

Thankfully, that's exactly what Apple has now done - sending Lodsys' chief executive Mark Small a letter which tells him to back off in no uncertain terms.

"There is no basis for Lodsys' infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers," Apple's vice president and general counsel Bruce Sewell claims in the letter. "Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the Apple App Makers are protected by that licence."

Sewell claims that Lodsys' actions result from a "fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple's licence and the way Apple's products work." Specifically, he makes the claim that because Apple's iOS developers rely on Apple-provided APIs to communicate with Apple-provided servers, the actions outlined in the patents occur on Apple's watch - meaning they are covered by Apple's licence, and the developers themselves owe Lodsys nothing.

Accusing the company of attempting to keep Apple out of the loop by sending the letters directly to the developers rather than to Apple itself, Sewell lays down the law - citing Lodsys' own website, the licence Apple holds with Lodsys, and legal precedent in an attempt to get the company to back off.

"Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers," Sewell concludes, "and cease its false assertions that the App Makers' use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of the patent."

Thus far, Lodsys has not responded to Apple's letter, which the company has also provided to its third-party developers - to ensure that they have all the information they should need to contest Lodsys' claims.

The full text of Sewell's letter can be found on the following page.