[ZeroGravitas]

Lodsys say that Apple, Microsoft and Google are "licensed", but they don't make clear whether those companies actually paid for a licence, or if they were granted it freely by Lodsys as part of a PR campaign to make them look bad for abandoning their developers.

[Tyrannosaurs]

Lodsys don't care about making Apple look bad.

They're patent trolls, they care about making money. If anything they'd want to avoid upsetting Apple because the minute Apple's legal and financial muscle gets involved things are a lot lot harder if you're Lodsys.

[ZeroGravitas]

Not if Apple's "financial muscle" decides it's easier/quicker/cheaper to buy Lodsys out than to let the uncertainty hang over their developer community. They're fairly clearly communicating "we are only in this for the money" in their blog posts. They clearly have been thinking of the best way for them to make money from these patents (which IV used to own but clearly didn't feel they could profitably licence or sue on the basis of) and creating PR problems for Apple that can be solved at a high price seems pretty good to me.

[jonbro]

I didn't realize how true this was, in reading this page this morning, I decided that he was just lying about Google, Apple and MS licensing the patent, of course they don't need to do anything for him to grant them license. It would probably be good for him to show some proof of the license, but I don't expect him to.

Also, at the percentages that he is seeking, how much does he truthfully expect to get out of something like pCalc. I don't know how much it is selling, but I kinda expect that it is a bit south of 1Mil.

Is there any resolution to this situation in a similar way that EA games shut down the "Edge" trademark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games). I hope so.