Lodsys are a patent holding company which is currently threatening to sue iOS and Android developers, specifically over the use of in-app purchasing APIs and buttons as provided within iOS and Android operating systems.

Its important to note here that both companies, but Apple in particular, make money from the use of these APIs and buttons and so any cooling effect placed on their use such as a threat of a law suit such as this directly threatens their revenue.

Lodsys argues that while Google and Apple have licensed the appropriate technologies under their own name, this does not translate to 3rd party licences for developers, therefore, the developers need to negotiate their own licences with Lodsys and pay up.

Apple claims that the licence negotiation they have with Lodsys does indeed cover 3rd party developers and quite apart from that, their suit wouldn't stand because of it would be "barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale".

Unsurprisingly, Lodsys dispute this view of the situation.

So what does it all mean?  Well in practical terms for developers very little, Lodsys seem to be targeting a handful reasonably high profile developers and they can't possibly hope to sue the many thousands of iOS and Android developers in the short term so for the most part developers can carry on business as usual.  

In the longer term, Apple (or Google) will certainly look to resolve this in a permanent way, which could mean taking on the legal costs and defence of any developer who is sued, or alternatively pursuing direct action against Lodsys themselves in some way.

In either case, its unlikely any developers will actually suffer as a result of this situation as thats the last thing Apple or Google wants to happen, they need developers on board and they need developers to feel safe to code on their platform without unforeseen legal repercussions relating to the platform itself.  Failure to deal with this is not an option for Apple and Google, there is simply too much at stake.