Mat Honan on Lodsys

Mat Honan:

So what is Lodsys, and what’s its game? It appears to simply be in the business of licensing patents which it purchased from Dan Abelow.

We were unable to reach Lodsys, but reached Abelow by phone. He noted he had sold his patents years ago, and was unaware of this morning’s news. But that he isn’t completely surprised. “Those patents are from the 1990s,” he said. “It isn’t surprising that methods of communicating with a server would become more useful over time. As a result they have become increasingly valuable.” (Abelow did not know the exact patent off the top of his head, but the patent in question appears to be number 7222078, based on other reports.)

So it would appear that the object of our scorn is Mark Small (as per the Lodsys website), not Abelow.

★ Friday, 13 May 2011