There's not been any formal progression in US outfit Lodsys' campaign to get some iOS developers, who are using IAP to update their games and apps from free to paid versions, to pay for 'using' its patent.

It seems to be stirring up serious opposition however.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is never slow to give its opinion in such cases, and staff attorney Julie Samuels has stated Apple should defend its developers.

"We've been waiting expectantly for Apple to step up and protect the app developers accused of patent infringement solely for using a technology that Apple required they use in order to sell their apps in Apple's App Store," she explains on the EFF's blog.

Key to this opinion is the detail of patent talks about the servers that the IAP system operate from, which in this case are Apple's iTunes servers, making the company party to these claims, even though it appears to be a licensor of the patent - but famously, not allowed to sprinkle such 'pixie dust' on third party application.

Troll with feet of clay 

This aspect of the case is taken up in much more detail at IP Target, a new blog that appears to have been started by a 'US Patent Attorney fed up with trolls giving my profession a bad name.'

S/He points out fundamental flaws in Lodsys' patent. Described as Divided Infringement, this means that "the owner of the patent would typically have to assert that the actions (or products) of all of the parties together constitute joint infringement."

In this case, because the patent talks about the iTunes' servers, as well as the hardware and IAP technology - all of which come from Apple, and are provided to developers - the author of IP Target concludes that the patent is badly drafted, ending: "I believe Lodsys has a very weak patent."

Yet, s/he also points out: "Even if my analysis is correct, there is no guarantee that Lodsys will not sue an application developer, but there is a good likelihood that anyone who fights Lodsys may win."

[sources: EFF / IP Target]