Lodsys sues another ten companies including Adidas, Best Buy, Best Western and Black & Decker
After suing ten large companies (including HP, Samsung and Motorola Mobility) in February and seven little app developers at the end of May, Lodsys filed a new complaint yesterday — as usual …
Context & Ripple Effects
Lodsys is running a two-track litigation campaign that keeps widening: after targeting ten large companies including HP, Samsung and Motorola Mobility in February, it sued seven little app developers at the end of May, and yesterday added a fresh complaint naming ten more household names — Adidas, Best Buy, Best Western and Black & Decker among them.
The new wave lands days after Apple publicly stated that its own developers are already licensed for the Lodsys patents at issue (Apple's licensing claim), which puts the platform directly at odds with Lodsys over who bears the liability for in-app technology.
First-order effects
- Ten more major consumer brands — Adidas, Best Buy, Best Western, Black & Decker and their co-defendants from February's cohort — must now budget for patent defense or evaluate settlement, regardless of how strong Lodsys's claims ultimately look.
Second-order effects
- Apple's assertion that its developers are licensed forces a jurisdictional fight over whether platform licenses shield individual app makers, raising the stakes for every iOS developer Lodsys has named and for the platforms' duty to defend them.
Third-order effects
- If the strategy holds — sweeping in both small developers and deep-pocketed brands on the same patents — non-practicing-entity enforcement becomes a standing tax on anyone shipping apps or connected products, pressuring large vendors and platform owners to consolidate the licensing defense themselves.
The trend: Non-practicing entities are scaling patent assertions from individual app developers up to global consumer brands, testing whether platform-level licenses can absorb liability for entire ecosystems.