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May 23, 2011

Mark Small
Chief Executive Officer
Lodsys, LLC
[Address information removed]
Dear Mr. Small:
I write to you on behalf of Apple Inc. (“Apple”) regarding your recent notice letter
s to application developers (“App Makers”) alleging infringement of certain patents
through the App Makers’ use of Apple products and services for the marketing, sale
, and delivery of applications (or “Apps”). Apple is undisputedly licensed to these
patent and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license. There is no basis
for Lodsys’ infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers. Apple intends to s
hare this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is f
ully prepared to defend Apple’s license rights.
Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension r
egarding Apple’s license and the way Apple’s products work, I expect that the additi
onal information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outst
anding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats t
o Apple’s customers and partners.
First, Apple is licensed to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio. As
Lodsys itself advertises on its website, “Apple is licensed for its nameplate prod
ucts and services.” Seehttp://www.lodsys.com/blog.html (emphasis in original). Und
er its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services
to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them
.
Second, while we are not privy to all of Lodsys’s infringement contentions because
you have chosen to send letters to Apple’s App Makers rather than to Apple itself
, our understanding based on the letters we have reviewed is that Lodsys’s infring
ement allegations against Apple’s App Makers rest on Apple products and services c
overed by the license. These Apple products and services are offered by Apple to
the App Makers to enable them to interact with the users of Apple products—such a
s the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and the Apple iOS operating system—through the use
or Apple’s App Store, Apple Software Development Kits, and Apple Application Progr
am Interfaces (“APIs”) and Apple servers and other hardware.
The illustrative infringement theory articulated by Lodsys in the letters we hav
e reviewed under Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 is based on App Makers’ use
of such licensed Apple products and services. Claim 1 claims a user interface th
at allows two-way local interaction with the user and elicits user feedback. Und
er your reading of the claim as set out in your letters, the allegedly infringin
g acts require the use of Apple APIs to provide two-way communication, the trans
mission of an Apple ID and other services to permit access for the user to the A
pp store, and the use of Apple’s hardware, iOS, and servers.
Claim 1 also claims a memory that stores the results of the user interaction and
a communication element to carry those results to a central location. Once agai
n, Apple provides, under the infringement theories set out in your letters, the
physical memory in which user feedback is stored and, just as importantly, the A
PIs that allow transmission of that user feedback to and from the App Store, ove
r an Apple server, using Apple hardware and software. Indeed, in the notice lett
ers to App Makers that we have been privy to, Lodsys itself relies on screenshot
s of the App Store to purportedly meet this claim element.
Finally, claim 1 claims a component that manages the results from different user
s and collects those results at the central location. As above, in the notice le
tters we have seen, Lodsys uses screenshots that expressly identify the App Stor
e as the entity that purportedly collects and manages the results of these user
interactions at a central location.
Thus, the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that
Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple’s App Maker
s. These licensed products and services enable Apple’s App Makers to communicate w
ith end users through the use of Apple’s own licensed hardware, software, APIs, me
mory, servers, and interfaces, including Apple’s App Store. Because Apple is licen
sed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Make
rs are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lods
ys.
Through its threatened infringement claims against users of Apple’s licensed techn
ology, Lodsys is invoking patent law to control the post-sale use of these licen
sed products and methods. Because Lodsys’s threats are based on the purchase or us
e of Apple products and services licensed under the Agreement, and because those
Apple products and services, under the reading articulated in your letters, ent
irely or substantially embody each of Lodsys’s patents, Lodsys’s threatened claims a
re barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale. As the Supreme C
ourt has made clear, “[t]he authorized sale of an article that substantially embod
ies a patent exhausts the patent holder’s rights and prevents the patent holder fr
om invoking patent law to control postsale use of the article.”Quanta Computer, In
c. v. LG Elecs., Inc., 553 U.S. 617 (2008).
Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters se
nt to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of
licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any L
odsys patent.
Very truly yours,
Bruce Sewell
Senior Vice President & General Counsel
Apple Inc.

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