Google starting to make moves against Lodsys finally.

Unless you've been living under a rock lately then you've probably heard about Lodsys and their patent trolling ways. More and more Android developers are receiving their friendly patent infringement 'welcome package', as we like to call it, and Google has remained rather silent... until now.

While Google has yet to make any formal statement regarding Lodsys and their plans to deal with them, they have filed for a re-examination of two patents that Lodsys is currently trolling about. The patents in question are #7,222,078 and #7,620,565 and while filing for a re-examination is a step in the right direction, it could actually not really accomplish anything at all. Here are the descriptions of the patents:

The above two patents are two out of a total of four that Lodsys are saying covers in-app purchases.

Google filed for re-examination of these two patents on Friday, August 12th, 2011 through the USPTO. What a re-examination does is have the USPTO take a look at a specific patent, in this case these two specific patents, and determine whether or not they are valid and if they should have ever been issued. If the USPTO comes to the conclusion that these two patents are invalid, developers who have been hit with the patent infringement welcome packages that cite these two patents will be safe.

“We’ve asked the US Patent Office to reexamine two Lodsys patents that we believe should never have been issued,” Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker. “Developers play a critical part in the Android ecosystem and Google will continue to support them.” - Kent Walker statement to Wired.

Google still needs the USPTO to actually grant them a re-examination which may or may not happen. If it does happen, developers still have to wait to see if the USPTO finds these two patents valid or not before figuring out what to do next. The good news is that since 1999, 95% of re-examination requests have been granted. This still does not guarantee that anything good will come out of it for Android developers but at least Google is now doing something.

The method Google is taking though is the exact opposite that Apple is taking. Apple has come right out and threatened Lodsys in a head-to-head battle that if they want to sue iOS developers that they will have to go through them (Apple). The method Google is taking is to go after the patent themselves.

It's a start and it's good to see Google actually doing something and making a statement, even if it through a news site, that they will support their developer and they know of the problem. In the meantime, if you are hit with one of these welcome packages from Lodsys, you can get some great advice/information from FOSS Patent Blog as well as EFF.org.

Website Referenced: FOSS Patent Blog