These slimy merchants are terrible... Please keep us posted on progress, Kiryl - and sorry to hear about your troubles. I'll get someone with some more knowledge in this area to weigh in shortly!

Sorry to hear about the trouble you are having with Lodsys! Unfortunately as you will probably have already gathered from those links you refer to Lodsys LLC is reasonable serious about what they do and do have some grounds for the claims they make. Unfortunately this whole area is still very much in development as there are a number of potential legal challenges being staged in the US in various forms in terms of both the validity of Lodsys patents and their related actions in trying to enforce these claimed patent rights. The interesting thing about these challenges however is that there is nothing on the surface of it that necessary looks guaranteed to force a change in Lodsys' tactics or to certainly bring into doubt the validity of their patents. But as I said this area is still very much in a state of flux at present.

My initial advice would be to firstly have it verified that it is Lodsys who has actually contacted you and not someone who may be running a scam in the name of Lodsys. I would then seek very specific evidence from them as to the precise patents you are deemed to have infringed and also precise evidence of the actions they claim you have undertaken which infringe these patents. You never know but it could be the case that certain of your actions or the territories the game is sold in may for whatever reason be outside of the reach of Lodsys’ existing patents. I’d say this is not necessarily a likely outcome given some of the other claims Lodsys have made of late but as a first position it still pays to do all you can to validate their claims before deciding how you then wish to deal with these.

If having done all this it appears likely that Lodsys’ position is valid then unfortunately I would probably suggest you at least start dialogue with them to ascertain precisely what they would be seeking in terms of a licence. Once again this does not necessary mean you have to go directly down this path but it does pay to start to get a clear idea of what your options are and how best to proceed. Sorry I don’t have any better news for you or any ‘silver bullet’ to extract yourself from this situation. If there is anything you’d like some more input on then don’t hesitate to contact me directly. All the best!

Kind regards,
David

No offence intended, David, but your advice seems to be based on outdated information.

Kiryl :-

Firstly, read the patent claims thoroughly (you will certainly have received documentation). Unlike what David supposes, it is in fact very unlikely that they have very good grounds for the claims they make (note the specifics of the patents and how freely they interpret key phrases) although this is not really relevant. Their strategy does not depend on the validity of their claims - it depends on litigation being too expensive for it to make financial sense for you to fight them. But you should still read this yourself and compare their claims to what you do in your app.

Secondly, see http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2011061523371286 for a detailed breakdown of the LodSys cases and http://www.groklaw.net/search.php?query=LodSys&keyType=phrase&datestart=... for much more relevant updates than what is on @FossP.

As you will note from there; the two key LodSys patents are currently undergoing reexamination and while it obviously isn't changing Lodsys's tactics, it certainly will bring doubts about the validity of their patents. Assuming you have received the standard form letter, the reexamination directly questions the key claims that Lodsys are trying to strongarm you with.

Thirdly - as will be immediately obvious - LodSys only has patents for the US. That means that the patents are irrelevant to any revenue that you generate outside the US, though as you will learn if you watch the video linked below, LodSys will try to force you to sign a general license for everything you do.

Fourthly - read as much about the case as you can. You will want to view the video stream here (as well as perhaps others on that channel):

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17682287

While I'm personally not happy with the Appsterdam guys rhetoric which contains way too much FUD and lacks critical information that might convince people to take alternate approaches to what they suggest (they want to start a reexamination, for instance, but never with a word mention the Google reexamination process), it is still worthwhile to listen to much of it. Note that NZ laws will obviously differ from the Euro-specific stuff.

The "Stop Lodsys" initiative is also worth a read: http://www.groupcamp.com/lodsys/

Fifth - find a lawyer - preferably one with prior expertise on this kind of case (if the lawyer does not have the expertise/experience, you can try and negotiate a lower price - it's not your job to pay for his education). You should probably go with a NZ lawyer first, as they will have a better grasp on the US-NZ specifics. If you want to speak with a US lawyer, you can try to contact the EFF: https://www.eff.org/ - they can help you get in touch. The appsterdam guys also have a lawyer of course, so you can try them if you like their approach.

I would definitely not recommend signing a license, but this is something you will definitely need to decide on for yourself.

Bottom line: the only advice you should ever take from an internet forum on something like this is the following.

- Do not take advice from the internet on legal matters. 

- Do as much research as you can. Decide with yourself what precisely it is you want to achieve. And then go and speak with a lawyer.

Thanks for the info @micax!

It's important to note, however, that David is, in fact, a lawyer and one of our local industry's best so don't go throwing his input aside without considering a few factors:

- Kiryl was looking for help, not specific, directed legal advice at this stage - David provided very sound input and precisely what I'd expect, actually, from a passing assessment. Even given the very informative input provided by micax, David's advice is still the first and most important step that any lawyer would expect you to take, no matter how much info may be out there about lodsys: read and verify the claims specifically served to you thoroughly and confirm as much as possible - don't assume anything, whether there are internet forums and articles dedicated to it or not. Start a dialogue with them and get as much info as you can - once again, don't assume anything!

- very few of us have time to apply a comprehensive breakdown on matters that we are usually paid for during the often long hours of our professional working day - especially on an internet forum : ) As micax pointed out, you don't go to the internet for legal advice; being locally directed, however, this forum is a good spot to get input and advice from colleagues. David is more than capable of providing the legal input required for a thorough assessment but isn't likely to be throwing it out at the drop of a hat. If, after you've checked things out yourself Kiryl, you're looking for good help from a local lawyer, David would be my first suggestion - and he's not paying me to say that haha ;).

Micax - that info looks really great (from a lightning speed skim :) - thanks heaps for that. Have you had dealings with lodsys yourself...? Are you based in NZ?

Thanks guys, this was helpful.

I'm wondering whether there would be any penalty for us in doing what Vietnamese company Wulven Games did, i.e.  settling the matter only after (and if) Lodsys files a lawsuit. It is very tempting to just do nothing, sit back and wait in hope Google's reexamination request succeeds...

Hi Kiryl,

It might be best to take any further discussion re commercial/legal strategy off line given that this is essentially a public forum.

Kind regards,

David

Have you had dealings with lodsys yourself...? Are you based in NZ?

Yes and no (I bumped across this thread on Twitter).

@Kiryl, whatever you do, you should definitely talk to a lawyer. The strategy you speculate on may be a valid one for you, but make sure that any decision you take (and keep in mind that ultimately it is your decision, not your lawyer's) is an informed decision. You will need the local legal expertise to be fully informed.

The one thing suggested here that I will disagree with a bit: do not start a dialogue with them just for the sake of doing so. This is precisely what they want so that they can coerce you into a license agreement. Read the accounts of others who have tried that - this is a rubber-stamp extortion operation, and you are not going to receive any information from them that you can not already get from the accounts already on the internet. If and when you contact them, have a clear goal for your action and preferably do so through your chosen lawyer.

This reminds me of when Worlds.com sued NCSoft.
Massively broad patents that were given out in the early days. Which is not really anyones fault because they couldn't of predicted what games and virtual worlds would become.

As usual, they settled out of court. Setting no legal precedent. Annoying.

Look at how broad this is. It's essentially every MMO and virtual world ever... lol

A client computer program provides instructions for a processor to locate and retrieve rich media and HTML files over a network, such as the internet, an internet or an LAN, for running in a three-dimensional (3D) graphical user interface. The program provides instructions for the processor to generate a 3D graphical user interface on a display. Then, the processor generates a metaphorical user object for navigating and interacting in the three dimensions within the environment via navigational and interactional inputs, respectively, from a user. The processor also integrates an HTML object into the environment, and interacts the user object with the HTML object in response to an interactional input from the user.