Apple has been sued 92 times in 3 years by patent trolls, making it the most targeted company, according to a statement filed with the FTC.
The remarks are in response to the Commission's request for public comments concerning its proposed collection of information pertaining to Patent Assertion Entities ("PAEs").
No firm has been targeted by PAEs more than Apple. Apple has litigated against PAEs 92 times in the past three years alone, and has received many more demands. Its experience confirms what many others have documented: although PAE activity is not necessarily harmful in theory, far too many PAEs exist only to extract undeserved royalties. As both a market leader and the PAEs' favorite target, Apple has a special interest in policies that discourage this behavior. Apple thanks the Commission for undertaking this important study, and respectfully submits these comments on the Commission's proposal.
Notably, Apple appears most upset with Lodsys which has used the tactic of going after Apple developers, many of whom don't have the financial resources to fight back.
One would be hard pressed to imagine a more troubling instantiation of this model than the one practiced by Lodsys Group, LLC... Lodsys burst onto the patent assertion scene in 2011 by firing off a spate of demand letters to app developers, many of whom are individuals with extremely little revenue, alleging that they were using software related to “in-app purchasing” that was covered by a handful of Lodsys-owned patents...
[A]gain, Lodsys scuttled away, settling with each of the developers for a pittance, thereby mooting Apple’s attempted intervention and avoiding a sure loss on the merits... Lodsys has no compunctions about this strategy. It will keep moving from developer to developer, leeching whatever royalties it can until a party with the resources to litigate scares it away.
More details can be found in the full statement linked below...
Read More [via ArsTechnica]
The remarks are in response to the Commission's request for public comments concerning its proposed collection of information pertaining to Patent Assertion Entities ("PAEs").
No firm has been targeted by PAEs more than Apple. Apple has litigated against PAEs 92 times in the past three years alone, and has received many more demands. Its experience confirms what many others have documented: although PAE activity is not necessarily harmful in theory, far too many PAEs exist only to extract undeserved royalties. As both a market leader and the PAEs' favorite target, Apple has a special interest in policies that discourage this behavior. Apple thanks the Commission for undertaking this important study, and respectfully submits these comments on the Commission's proposal.
Notably, Apple appears most upset with Lodsys which has used the tactic of going after Apple developers, many of whom don't have the financial resources to fight back.
One would be hard pressed to imagine a more troubling instantiation of this model than the one practiced by Lodsys Group, LLC... Lodsys burst onto the patent assertion scene in 2011 by firing off a spate of demand letters to app developers, many of whom are individuals with extremely little revenue, alleging that they were using software related to “in-app purchasing” that was covered by a handful of Lodsys-owned patents...
[A]gain, Lodsys scuttled away, settling with each of the developers for a pittance, thereby mooting Apple’s attempted intervention and avoiding a sure loss on the merits... Lodsys has no compunctions about this strategy. It will keep moving from developer to developer, leeching whatever royalties it can until a party with the resources to litigate scares it away.
More details can be found in the full statement linked below...
Read More [via ArsTechnica]