“Timing is key in legal processes. I just blogged about a court order denying Samsung early access to the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3, and the implications it may have on the timing of Apple’s possible motion for a preliminary injunction,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents.
“The week before last, Apple filed a motion to intervene in Lodsys’s lawsuit against seven app developers,” Mueller reports. “I was hoping for Apple’s intervention to be allowed very soon, but we may all have to wait. Lodsys would have had to respond to Apple’s motion by June 27, 2011 (Monday) but just asked the court for additional time — for two months, in fact. Lodsys would like to have time until including August 27, 2011.”
“The biggest problem is that app developers need to know from Apple and Google how they should handle Lodsys’s missives. Lodsys continues to send out letters demanding royalties. Whoever gets contacted by them needs to know whether the platform makers will provide blanket coverage to app developers,” Mueller writes. “Otherwise, app developers may be well-advised to sign a reasonable license agreement as a smarter alternative to the enormous costs of U.S. patent litigation.”
Mueller writes, “It’s possible that part of the reason for Lodsys requesting this additional time is that they’re secretly negotiating with Apple and Google.”
Much more in the full article here.
Since Lodsys is the one being the aggressor in this patent crap, they should not be granted more time, especially as it will create lasting harm to the people they are suing,
Apparently, Lodsys is just one man in a small office in Chicago. Stupid.
What is really stupid is that he went after a whole bunch of developers at one time. He would have had much better luck if he had simple gone after one at a time. Each little developer would have signed the deal and he could have collected his not so hard earned money. By attacking a whole bunch of developers at one time he has woken the lion who will come after his ass.
This request for delay, means that the little developers have to decide what to do, in the absence of guidance from Apple or Google. I would just settle, for the small percentage, rather than worry about lawyers.
IANAL but surely with this case pending, devs should just tell Lodsys to fsck off until the case is settled either way.
=:~)
Hmm…Chicago…Steve Bartman…
I suspect Lodsys is attempting to introduce this delay to have more developers pay up license fees, just to be on the safe side.
The court should throw their request out.
“Now, Youse Can’t Leave”:
http://allthingsd.com/20110610/apple-to-lodsys-now-youse-cant-leave/