Previously on Patent Trolling America:

Indie developers get hit by threats from company that makes a living suing people over wide-ranging patents.

Lodsys goes wah wah wah on a blog, suggesting they are the victims here. I disagree (and, judging by the fact my article from yesterday rocketed to second place in Revert to Saved’s all-time most-read list, I’m not the only one).

Today, the guy who first revealed he’d been hit by Lodsys, James Thomson, said another wave of attacks is happening:

Sounds like there’s a second wave of FedEx parcels today – the Iconfactory just got one.

This one’s going to run and run unless someone fights and wins, or Apple smashes Lodsys in its stupid face with a lawyer-shaped punch.

Two points people have been making about Lodsys are worth countering.

1. They only want 0.575% of US income from IAP, so why all the whining?

The figure might not seem much, but what’s to stop Lodsys amending this later? Or for some other party to say it has a patent that IAP infringes and demand 1% or 2%? And then for another to do the same? Before you know it, half your income is paying patent trolls and Apple’s platform gradually becomes deserted by the developers who made it a success.

Also, importantly, this figure is apparently not included in the documents being sent out by Lodsys. It’s all very well to say “but we’re not asking for much” after you’ve already scared the shit out of a bunch of developers. (Most can now, of course, find the information online, but they shouldn’t have to, and the many developers who received the letter on Friday probably spent the weekend wondering how much Lodsys would damage their business.)

It’s also still unclear whether paying Lodsys would breach the terms developers sign with Apple, meaning IAP in itself would be possible until some kind of global resolution is made, such as Apple amending its terms accordingly. (And that would surely open the floodgates to infinite trolling idiots on money rafts.)

2. Lodsys says Apple is licensed, so it’s not going to fight, and it’s only fair the devs get permission to use the technology too.

First, Apple provides no alternative to IAP, so devs cannot avoid it unless they ditch any app with this capability. Secondly, I don’t for a second imagine Apple legal thought problems like this would ever occur, and that it’d roll out a system that would eventually incur extra costs for iOS developers. Development platforms are supposed to be utterly bulletproof-safe to develop for. You shouldn’t have to think “I wonder whether some scumbag will sue me for using IAP at some point”—this should all be covered; developers should be protected by the company that owns the platform or service.

Should Apple capitulate here, expect—again—a ton more threats of this kind to appear, resulting in developer income being chipped away piece by piece. Given Apple’s rather powerful legal team, I’ll be astonished if it sits back and does nothing whatsoever.