RIM Called on to Protect Development Community From Patent Litigation

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US patent licensing firm Lodsys has lodged a complaint against various smartphone manufacturers and app developers. When patent litigation hits individual app developers, how far will the platform owner go to protect its ecosystem? Will RIM come to the rescue?

Originally intended as incentives for innovation, patents are being considered a threat to development. This is the bone of contention in many patent disputes today. Do patents promote innovation? Or do patents, in fact, stifle innovation?

When a small-time BlackBerry app developer Yissachar Radcliffe received a patent-infringement notice, the first thing that came to mind was how to pay for a lawyer, given that the total proceeds for his game won’t even afford a couple of hours in attorney’s fees. Radcliffe develops a single BlackBerry PlayBook game called Lonely Turret, which has a free version that links to the BlackBerry app marketplace for the premium version. But Lodsys says they own the patent for in-app payments and purchases. In fact, the company has also issued infringement notifications to other application developers for Android and iOS.

Apple and Google are already fighting it out with Lodsys in the US courts and the USPTO, in an effort to protect their interests and that of independent application developers. Google is asking the USPTO to re-examine Lodsys’ patents, to possibly narrow down their scope. Meanwhile, Radcliffe has already contacted Ontario, Canada-based RIM for assistance, although no definite response has been issued to date.

Understandably, ideas and designs can be owned as intellectual property. But given the fast pace of product, software and technological development today, patents tend to be broadly-interpreted, which can often lead to disputes. There are various issues here. Does a piece of software use a technology previously owned by someone else? Is it a different technology altogether? Or is the ownership invalidated because of the generic nature of the technology?

Surely enough, ownership of an idea will entitle an individual or entity to profits made on these ideas. But if an idea is patented with the intent of simply earning from the ownership of this technology rather than developing on it for the purpose of creating relevant technological advancements, then we might need to re-examine the system. These questions will be better answered when various patent-litigation lawsuits are resolved (or settled). But for now, users, developers and platform owners will have to wait, which might take months or even years.