Welcome to the first edition of the Macalope Daily ! The Macalope has long feel hem in by having just the single hebdomadal pillar . A live topic on Monday is often stale by Wednesday , moldy by Friday , and inedible by Saturday . ( Fine . Ungulates have unlike banner about what ’s edible . Just rent it go . ) While some of these items may get rolled into the Saturday column , Macworld Insiders will get the Macalope ’s sarcastic take on the news every weekday , when it ’s bakehouse - fresh ! See , you ’re luckyandgood - await .
This variation is a perfect example of what the Macalope ’s talking about . The gravid news program that smash on Friday did n’t appear untilafterthe Macalope had already enclose up his Saturday column : Several main app developersreceived effectual threatsfrom a company called Lodsys , which claim the employment of in - app buying violate its patent .
Over at Edible Apple , Josh Rosenthall tied together some circumstantial evidence to suggest that ex - Microsofty and patent of invention round extraordinaire Nathan Myhrvold could be behind Lodsys . After leaving Microsoft , Myhrvold clearly asked himself the eternal experiential question , “ Where do I go down from here ? ” Then one day he saw a booklet entitled “ Patent Trolling andYou ” in the unemployment post — and the remainder is history .
The Macalope read much ofthe main letters patent in question(there’san hour of his life he wo n’t get back ) and to his true untrained and very , very bored optic it appear to describe a system for maker to get feedback from user on the serviceableness of embedded package . If that does n’t fathom like “ in - app purchase ” to you , well , you ’re not alone . One of the diagrams is even of a facsimile car . Which , when you recall about it , is charmingly primitive . As if fax auto , printer and written matter machine manufacturers cared about usableness !
Oh , you fax - auto - manufacturer apologists and fanboys can deny it , but the evidence is in offices across the orb . They just . Do n’t . Care . Which is plausibly how this patent end up in the hand of a firm specializing in patent trolling .
Of course , the Macalope ’s not a letters patent attorney , nor does he play one on boob tube ( not since his comedy resume show on CourtTV got cancel ) , and there are other patent require . But the only connection between the patent and in - app purchases that he could see was “ A user communicates something back to a vendor from inside the software . ” This is why the Macalope was surprised to learn this morning that Lodsys — who isveryput - out by people ’s crudeness towards them — say Apple has already licensed its patent .
Lodsys ’s competition is that while Apple licensed the patent of invention , the same is n’t on-key for each single developer and give me , pay me , pay me . What they ’re require for does n’t seem outrageous on a per - app basis ( if a developer makes $ 1,000 , they ’d give Lodsys $ 5.75 ) , but it would sure as shooting append up fast across the App Store .
Assuming Apple did certify the patent of invention in question , the Macalope would be surprised to take heed that the company had n’t consider this into consideration . Their effectual stave has been around the closure a few time , you be intimate .
At any rate , it seems that portion of “ enjoyable legal relish - down ” are low this morning . After spend an hour reading that patent of invention , you may forgive the Macalope for hoping for a tardy good afternoon rally .
