If you are not already aware, Lodsys has also sued Brother, Canon, HP, Hulu, Lenovo, Lexmark, Motorola, Novell, Samsung, and Trend Micro over the '078 patent plus a few others.
In my wildest dreams, maybe we could get some feedback (such as any great pieces of prior art they have identified) from the lawyers representing these companies. I put out some feelers to see if I could get a response from the contacts I have and I will update if I receive any information. I assure you that most of these large companies are paying patent attorneys to do invalidity or non-infringement opinions right now.
While some of the companies will likely sell out to the highway robber troll and sign a license agreement, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the patent(s) (i.e. identifying risk) can greatly affect the business analysis, leverage in negotiations, and the general decision making that will need to be made when considering how to deal with trolls like Lodsys. Unfortunately, small developers typically do not have the cash or resources to hire attorneys to do a proper investigation, response, and rebuttal to trolls like Lodsys. Thus, one of my goals here is to make an attempt to distribute information that may help assess the risk presented by these trolls.
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