It always restores my faith in humanity a little when I see the entirety of the tech press aligned against an entity so unquestionably malignant. Like the patent trolls at Lodsys who are trying to squeeze iOS and Android developers for the intellectual property equivalent of “the thing that lets this other thing happen”.

Not ones to let overwhelming contempt for their existence deter them, Lodsys decided to ignore the 21 day window it gave developers to respond to the original claims and filed suit against 7 developers today. “Lodsys chose to move its litigation timing to an earlier date than originally planned, in response to Apple’s threat, in order to preserve its legal options.” Translation: because Apple told us to go fuck ourselves, we’re going to try to scare individuals into settling before Apple can form a more cohesive legal strategy. Desperation is indeed a stinky cologne.

More humorously, Lodsys offered $1,000 to every developer that is the target of these suits “if it turns out that the scope of Apple’s existing license rights apply to fully license you with respect to our claim relating to your App on Apple iOS”. So that’s like, what, an hour and a half of legal counsel? And you know they’re good for it because they’d never back out of something they promised – like sticking to the 21 day response window they originally gave developers.

Tell you what guys: with present company now including a Cupertino company with $43 billion cash on hand, you’d have a better chance of hitting the lottery if you took a cup of McDonald’s coffee and dumped it in your lap. And there’s that off chance that you’ll sterilize yourselves, which we’d all feel horribly about.

And Google: anytime you want to stick your neck out for your developers, I’m sure they’d all feel a lot better about working on your platform.

According to Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, Apple has sent a letter to patent troll legitimate businessmen Lodsys stating that it believes its developers are covered by the license Apple has (and Lodsys confirmed) relating to in-app purchases.

My objective advice would be for Lodsys to change their recently-soiled underwear and resume their post under their bridge, but I’d really love to see Lodsys persist and have Apple nuke the site from orbit.

It’s the only way to be sure.