A motion to intervene was filed by Apple last month while defending in a case filed by Lodsys against 11 application developers. Lodsys has today been reported to have filed its rebuttal against the Apple move to get the electronic giant’s efforts denied. Lodsys today filed a much redacted document at the US District Court in the Eastern Marshall Division in Texas.
The document quotes Lodsys as saying that there have been a lot of changes since Apple was involved in the case. They include the targets of the lawsuit, which the company expanded considerably last week adding several game developers like EA, Atari, Square Enix, Rovio and Take-Two Interactive.
According to Lodsys, these companies have violated the patents held by the company concerning their mobile software. The filing says that Apple has repeatedly asserted that all the other defendants are small companies which have limited resources. However, the motion was filed prematurely by the California based giant as Lodsys submitted an amended complaint which now includes a number of large companies which hold considerable technical and financial resources. Lodsys says that in the current scenario the defendants in the case can be easily assessed as adequately capable of representing the purported interest of Apple.
The intervention filing submitted by Apple in June said that Apple holds an interest in the property consisting of its license to the patents which are involved in the lawsuit. Also, the relationship that Apple shares with the developers which involve them using the services and products which use the contentious patented technology are already licensed by the company. Apple added that the complaint from Lodsys along with its threats to the other developers related with Apple has adversely affected the value that Apple’s licenses hold and the relationship that the company has with the developers.
Lodsys has fired a rebuttal in its complaint today, stating that the interest of Apple is nothing more than an economic onw, adding that the prerequisites for intervention are not met by such interests. As far as the redacted section of the filing is concerned, analysts believe that it holds the details concerning Apple’s license agreement for using the concerned patents, which the report says are currently being used by Apple as ammunition against developers. The controversy was triggered by Lodsys when it started targeting developers, asking for licensing fees for the apps which used the feature for in-app purchases.
