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Comment by sudhirj | Hacker News Reader

What happens if all the iOS developers gang up and file a class action suit to have the patents reconsidered?

It will take a year to reconsider. Apple needs to act quickly and aggressively on this to show the public and media that they stand behind the developers. They can't let the App Store become a feared, shady, legal-gibberish ecosystem.

Very true. I find it disturbing that they haven't already issued a statement about this - I would have thought they'd scramble to get out a statement saying that they're aware of the situation and are considering options.

Only in magical HN land do companies "scramble" to address issues like this. The best thing to do is to pretend these companies don't exist and you've never heard of them, their patents, or what they're up to.

Once your patent lawyers have had time to study what's going on, then you're ready to do something.

It's not "disturbing" at all. It's just common sense.

I'm looking at more from a developer relations standpoint - I would think every developer who's got one of these letters is wondering where Apple is and why they haven't handled it already.

Yes. It is quite possible that Apple's patent lawyers are scrambling. It's just that scramble-speed in legal land is weeks, not hours.

Lawyers can read and write at superhuman speed, but it still takes time to prepare all that material and do all that research. It's not a field that rewards those who shoot from the hip.

The value of a "we're aware of the situation" is basically nil as it's inconceivable that they're not aware of it (unless you hold them to be utterly incompetent or living in some sort of a bubble).

The law (and lawyers) move slowly so I suspect it's going to be some time before they have anything useful and if you can't say anything useful why say anything at all?

I heard on some podcast or other that there is a clause in the iOS developer term that expressly forbids developers from acknowledging that any of the IP they use ISNT Apples? If that is the case then the iOS terms are preventing the developers from settling and the ball is surely in Apple's court.

Any devs got the terms handy?

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