It’s Thursday, June 30th, bright and early in the morning and we have another developer who has come forward that on Monday they received the same patent infringement threat package that two other developers have already received. That is three in one week for those keeping track.
The first to come out about this was Cory Trese of the Trese Brothers and developers of Star Traders RPG. The second was early this week with Noble Master Games getting this welcome package from Lodsys LLC. Today we have Apostek Software who also received this package on Monday. Each varies slightly in what aspect of their game that Lodsys LLC is targeting with their apparent patent infringement threat. In the case of Apostek, who develop slot machines and Pocket Bingo on Android, it is similar to the Trese Brothers situation.
Their game, Pocket Bingo, is the current target due to offering a button in game that will redirect people to the Android Market to upgrade to the paid version of the Pocket Bingo from within the game. This is similar to Cory Trese’s situation of offering a button in-game that allows you to upgrade to the Elite version of Star Traders RPG. Apparently, this patent covers a multitude of in-app purchasing formats, even if it is a link to another app in the market for upgrade. This is stretching it a bit when it comes to the term of in-app purchasing considering it really isn’t an in-app purchase.
We have outlined ways to protect yourself in our previous article which, if you receive this from Lodsys LLC, we suggest you read. Also please contact us so we can not only print your story but get you in contact with everyone else being hit with this.
We are still waiting to hear back from Google with any sort of official statement regarding this and possible action by them.
Developer Website: Apostek Software
