What Lodsys wants from iOS developers ... money

The other day it emerged that that a firm called Lodsys had approached a selected number of iOS developers with a 'notice' asking them to participate in licensing discussions. But what does Lodsys want?

The developers approached had been understandably reticent about discussing the notice they received, but now Lodsys has posted a Q&A on its blog with answers to some of the most common questions it has received via email (along with death threats it seems). Here Lodsys comes clean with what it is after:

In the case of an Application doing an in-application upgrade (and only this scenario), Lodsys is seeking 0.575% of US revenue over for the period of the notice letter to the expiration of the patent, plus applicable past usage.  So on an application that sells US$1m worth of sales in a year, the licensee would have an economic exposure of $5,750 per year.

What's interesting is that according to one of the developers approached by Lodsys, James Thomson, this is the first reference to money he has seen.

[poll id="632"]

Open source activist Florian Mueller calls the claims "absolutely outrageous" and says that Lodsys are "abusing the system, jeopardizing the mobile apps economy."