Groklaw, one of the go-to technology legal analysis sites ever since a paralegal formed it to make sense of the SCO Linux legal battle, has weighed in on the legal wrangling around the lawsuit that patent trial Lodsys filed against iOS developers for making use of patented in-app purchase technology. Apple has been trying to intervene, on the grounds that it feels its own license of those patents already indemnifies the developers—and Lodsys has been desperately trying to keep Apple out of the suit.
How desperately? Groklaw suggests Lodsys may be in an outright “panic”. Looking at some of the legal filings, Groklaw’s analyst points out that Apple’s arguments are reasonable and well-cited, whereas Lodsys’s arguments amount to poorly-thought-out, badly-cited “legal gibberish.” “I don’t usually like to predict outcomes on motions,” Groklaw writes, “but I will go out on a limb here and predict that Apple is granted the right to intervene if for no other reason than Lodsys appears to be clueless with respect to the law.”
Couldn’t happen to a nicer company. Well, except maybe if it happened to Righthaven.
Nice to know that things have not being going well in court for either Lodsys or Righthaven. And it’s also great that Groklaw didn’t retire from the field when SCO was vanquished in court. In IP law, there’s always something that needs fixing.
“patent troll”, not “patent trial”, although Lodsys is evidently a trial to everyone involved.