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Apple is patenting Swift features

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Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#111

Post by shmerl »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #103
shmerl wrote: post #74

Classic Apple hoarding software patents. Even if they don't use them, this looks like a threat move. Patenting programming language features is just sick. Questions in that thread: > 1. If a separate open-source programming language under Apache 2.0 license implements an optional chaining feature, would it be a violation of the patent then? > 2. What if there's a separate implementation of a Swift compiler developed…

They have not patented any programming language features. They have patented one or more ways to implement some programming language features. Read the claims, that is what is protected. Do one step differently and you are golden.

That doens't make it any less sick really (as applies to all software patents). But it's especially sick in the context of programming languages.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#112

Post by oflannabhra »

vageli wrote: post #105
oflannabhra wrote: post #101

Chris Lattner has commented on the OP: ----- Disclaimer: I'm not an apple employee and not am not lawyer, this is just my understanding of the situation having spent lots of time talking to lawyers and other experts about this: I agree with much of the sentiment that software patents are often silly and the system is broken in many ways. This patent is a reasonable example of that (patenting syntactic sugar for monad…

> >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. > Am I misreading this to mean that if Apple sues so…

OK, so it sounds like for Apache 2.0 to have any teeth, there have to be actual patents in play.

Since Apple has received the patents, not through the Apache 2.0 license, but from the USPTO, they would not lose access to those patents should they sue for infringement over them. IAMAL, but it seems like there still might be a case to be made for Apple's use of Swift to be covered through the Apache 2.0 license.

It seems like the most logical explanation of this whole thing is that Apple wants to ensure that all users of Swift are free from litigation. To do so, they used the Apache 2.0 license to cover the code. However, the license requires there to be patents that exist, so that enforcement clauses prevent trolls from being granted a patent and then going after users of Swift. So, Apple filed for some patents that cover aspects of Swift.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#114

Post by saghm »

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".

Ruby does seem to have the exact thing: http://mitrev.net/ruby/2015/11/13/the-operator-in-ruby/

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#115

Post by pnw_hazor »

shmerl wrote: post #111
pnw_hazor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have not patented any programming language features. They have patented one or more ways to implement some programming language features. Read the claims, that is what is protected. Do one step differently and you are golden.

That doens't make it any less sick really (as applies to all software patents). But it's especially sick in the context of programming languages.

It is clear that you, like many commenters in this thread, have very little, if any, understanding of US patent law.

This patent is a nothing burger.

Don't take it personally. Patent law is about the most complex area of law. Most tech press blows it too.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#116

Post by shawnz »

maxxxxx wrote: post #25
subb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too knowledgeable about patents, but maybe we need a "liberal" patent? Something that can't be used to sue other people, but protects you from being sued.

Just publish all your findings and establish prior art and you should be ok. Or is there more to it?

How can you guarantee that the person publishing their findings won't change their mind later and apply for a patent?

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#117

Post by dotuser »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #96
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.

Do Rust and C# implement these features the same exact way as Apple claims in this patent? Patents protect how you something, not what you do.

Technically speaking, C# does not have optionals so I don't think it can be argued that C# violates the patent unless it's generalized to include null propagation which operates on reference types.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#118

Post by aurelwu »

DannyBee wrote: post #69
uberman wrote: post #40

I don't quite understand. The patent (9,952,841) seems to be about the language swift. There is mention about language features describing the language, but I don't see a specific claim to any of them. "optionals chaining" (the feature that everyone is alarmed about) is just one of the features listed. Other features mentioned include an "IDE" and "unicode" as well as support for "functions". Am I missing something?…

IP lawyer here. You should ignore everything but the claims, and see what the claims say. So stare at https://patents.google.com/patent/US9952841B2/en and look only at the claims. To me, that set of claims is ... worrying

"Also, the new language provides two range operators, the half-closed (e.g., a . . . b) and closed (e.g., a . . . b) range operators, which are not found in the C language. " their examples for half-closed and closed are identical. I wonder how many such mistakes are in a patent filing in average and what the effect of such mistakes is.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#119

Post by DannyBee »

oflannabhra wrote: post #101

Chris Lattner has commented on the OP: ----- Disclaimer: I'm not an apple employee and not am not lawyer, this is just my understanding of the situation having spent lots of time talking to lawyers and other experts about this: I agree with much of the sentiment that software patents are often silly and the system is broken in many ways. This patent is a reasonable example of that (patenting syntactic sugar for monad…

IP lawyer here. No, that is a correct interpretation.

The reason it doesn't matter is because of this:

"then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work"

As the owner of the patents, Apple doesn't need this license to have rights to those patents. They have rights otherwise.

Now, it would terminate the rights they have to other people's patents under the license. (IE if a contributor submitted something the contributor owned a patent to, apple would lose rights to that patent)

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#120

Post by maxxxxx »

shawnz wrote: post #116
maxxxxx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just publish all your findings and establish prior art and you should be ok. Or is there more to it?

How can you guarantee that the person publishing their findings won't change their mind later and apply for a patent?

Is there a way to waive that right?
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