Apple Developers Face Patent Threats Over In-App Purchasing

TGDaily: Several iOS developers have been threatened with patent infringement lawsuits by patent license holding company Lodsys. The firm says its patent titled "Methods and systems for gathering information from units of a commodity across a network" covers Apple's in-app purchase tool. The company is asking developers to pay 0.575 percent of U.S. revenues as a licensing fee.

"Lodsys wants people to use the rights in their products and services, not to stop using it," the company says. "Our goal is to popularize the technology, have it used by many people and to make relatively small amounts per licensee, but to have the large volume of licensees aggregate to be a worthwhile business."