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Apple is patenting Swift features

forums.swift.org

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Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#51

Post by pmontra »

thekingofh wrote: post #9
hdra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not the only thing, no? Doesn't it also prevent e.g. other people/company from including that feature in their own programming language that doesn't use Swift at all?

--edit-- see below comments.. this may not be so simple. No. The Apache License 2.0 does not work that way. You are allowed to copy and use everything in the Swift language to your own liking in a similar manner to the MIT and BSD permissive licenses. However if you then try and begin a lawsuit against Apple for anything in what you copied, your rights are terminated, therefore invalidating your suit. The Apache Lice…

How about Apple switching to a different patent holder friendly license for a future version of Swift? Older versions would be safe, but they could ask money to use the new ones. And maybe they decide who to go after first.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#52

Post by lalaithion »

masklinn wrote: post #13
kbsletten wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, given that Rust and C# also have these features I think the likelihood that the patent is upheld is unlikely. I guess they could threaten you with it since lawyers are expensive, but it seems silly to me.

FWIW Rust does not have optionals chaining, except in the monadic sense (in which case ML and Haskell have optionals chaining). That is, in Rust you'd use Option::map or Option::and_then, there is no equivalent to the `?.` and `?[]` operators, the `?` operator (or `try!` macro) is a shortcut for an "unwrapping guard".

Right, but isn't `?.` just syntactic sugar on `Option::and_then`? Is this a patent on a piece of syntactic sugar, or is it a patent on the idea of chaining optional values?

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#55

Post by klq »

naringas wrote: post #41
solarkraft wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you make a pretty similar argument about all types of patents?

it wouldn't be quite the same because software does not have physical material properties. IMO this difference is crucial.

To me software patents and patents for, for example, real world engines are the same. It's okay not to like patents, but separating software patents from the rest makes no sense.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#56

Post by eecc »

dmos62 wrote: post #2

These patents seem to be a countermeasure against patent trolls, since the code uses the Apache license. Quoting from link: > Apache license gives the right to use patents required to use the code (assuming the original author had those rights), and the code implementing optional chaining in the compiler is Apache licensed. So, the only thing Apple having a patent on optional chaining does is to stop frivolous suits…

Optional chaining? You mean Apple got a patent for flatMap?

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#57

Post by thekingofh »

coldtea wrote: post #22

> This is very disturbing. It's like Apple has gone insane. Computer languages are not supposed to be owned by any company. We learned this mistake with Java and APIs. Computer languages are supposed to be a part of the Commons, owned by everyone for the benefit of humanity, not the benefit of a greedy corporation. Who "learned that"? The public (devs, etc) already knew and wanted that. Companies however, have been p…

You are correct here, but the question is, is there a flaw in the Apache License then? Should it also include the patent grant for non-derived works, as long as someone adheres to the license?

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#58

Post by fnord123 »

thekingofh wrote: post #50

It looks like there is an unintended consequence of the Apache License 2.0 of allowing a company to patent some functionality, and the only way to acquire that patent is to keep your implementation as a close fork of the original derived work. The question is, whether or not the patent grant for just using swift (downloading and running it), can cover other development work that is not associated with swift. If not t…

>3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

Apple is a Contributor. They have given a patent grant on their contributions. If they didn't contribute something to Swift and they sue Swift other contributors for making a patent violation or their non-contributions, then all patent grants for Apple disappear and other contributors can sue Apple for anything that Swift uses that was patented.

IANAL.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#59

Post by dnautics »

riskable wrote: post #15
hdra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not the only thing, no? Doesn't it also prevent e.g. other people/company from including that feature in their own programming language that doesn't use Swift at all?

Yes. This, exactly. By patenting this language feature Apple has very clearly stated that they are "making a claim of ownership" as it were of this feature across all languages and non-derivative implementations. ...which is a perfect example of why software patents shouldn't exist in the first place. One could implement this feature in any number of novel, unique ways therefore the patent is nothing more than a clai…

We can find out if apple is serious about keeping it open by asking them to turn over those patents to an entity like RPX
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