App Developers Beware Patent Trolls

Just developing… read this great post from an IP lawyer/activist, Florian Mueller. To quote his article:

FOSS Patents

The Lodsys situation is getting out of control, and I think each affected app developer should now look for an exit strategy. In this blog post I describe the way I would go about. After an update on the Lodsys situation, I’ll outline the short version of my suggested course of action. Thereafter, I go into detail on its various parts.

iOS and Android (and cross-platform) app developers receive letters and phone calls, take down apps and remove features

About two months ago, Lodsys started sending out patent assertion letters to iOS app developers. More than one month ago, Lodsys sued seven app developers in Texas — mostly over iOS apps but also one Android app.

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/cost-efficient-way-for-app-developers.html

And he links to the EFF’s site to a post in 2010 about Apple’s program:

UPDATED: All Your Apps Are Belong to Apple: The iPhone Developer Program License Agreement

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/iphone-developer-program-license-agreement-all

  • Ban on Public Statements
  • App Store Only
  • Ban on Reverse Engineering
  • No Tinkering with Any Apple Products
  • Kill Your App Any Time
  • We Never Owe You More than Fifty Bucks

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