Apple has responded to the recent patent threats again iOS application developers by Lodsys.



From OSNews:

Bruce Sewell, Apple's senior vice president and general counsel, sent a letter to Lodsys CEO Mark Small detailing why the threats are baseless. Apple claims they have a license to the patents in question, and that the iOS application developers are mere customers - not distributors.

The basic reasoning in Apple's letter is pretty straightforward. Say you buy an iPhone. There's a boatload of technology in there that Apple has had to buy patents for, but you as a customer don't have to bother with that since any patent license Apple has obviously covers its customers as well. Apple is arguing that the same principle applies here; developers are merely customers of Apple's APIs and backends - and they don't need to care about any patents that cover these APIs and backends in the same way users don't have to care about the patents covering an iPhone.

  Apple Responds to Lodsys, Claims Developers Are Licensed