Rovio, the Finnish games company and creator of Angry Birds, is entering legal hot water with Lodsys, a Texas company that claims Rovio violated its patents, according to the Telegraph.
Lodsys claims its patents cover how Angry Birds allows players to purchase new levels in its mobile game apps. Angry Birds is downloaded more than one million times a day and has expanded beyond being a mobile app to many other platforms.
The Telegraph reports that many European game developers have considered withdrawing their apps from the U.S. Apple App Store for fear Lodsys will sue them over the same patent violation:
“The US patent system allows software implementations of ideas to be patented, which differs significantly from the European Union, although the European Parliament has been considering aligning patent rights with the US,” according to Start up Smart, a website for new businesses and entrepreneurs. “The growth of lawsuits in the US by so-called “patent trolls” – which simply demand payments after assessing intellectual property rights – poses a major threat to the burgeoning mobile app market.”
Read more on The Telegraph.
