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Apple is patenting Swift features

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Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#201

Post by jlokier »

dragonwriter wrote: post #191
tyre wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you’re a company sued asking for less than what the cost of fighting would be, it’s in your interest to cut a deal. In that case, whether the patent is valid or not doesn’t matter.

> But if you’re a company sued asking for less than what the cost of fighting would be, it’s in your interest to cut a deal. Or, it's in your interest to fight and make it as expensive as possible for the person making the claim to prosecute it, if you have a good case, because while it's an iterated game, not a single round, and you need to make sure the next however many potential trolls (whether the same with a ne…

Realistically, most small companies can't afford to fight a large one over a patent infringement claim, regardless of the merits of the case.

It might be worth a couple of rounds of letters saying "we don't believe your claims to be valid", but if the aggressor continues into litigation, the legal fees can quickly become overwhelming. As in more than the defendant's business is worth.

Individuals writing open source software (such as compilers) have no chance, as most of them are not wealthy, and their personal assets are on the line.

If you're unluckly enough to be in the situation the parent describes, where an aggressor will keep coming for more if you capitulate on the first one, there's probably no way to win. Sometimes the rational action is a painful one: Completely shut down whatever it is you're doing, and find something else to do instead.

I'm familiar with projects that have shut down, some having been published and then (sadly) removed from public availability, over patent issues where it wasn't clear the aggressor's claims had merit, but they couldn't take the risk. Several in fields I wanted to work in.

The effect I see is development paused for a decade or two until it's safe to resume.

I suppose you might find a "no win, no fee" lawyer, but are those common in this situation?

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#202

Post by reboog711 »

int_19h wrote: post #152
dwaite wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but this is also the case for say features in Swift that IBM contributes to the code base. It is a purposeful limitation of the Apache 2.0 license that the "patent pool" effect is limited to the project.

So, to make it clear - since that's a question that was unanswered in the linked discussion. If someone makes a from-scratch implementation of Swift, or any other language with similar features, can Apple then sue them over these patents? Or does AL prevent this?

Speaking as a PMC of Apache Flex, but not as a lawyer...

> If someone makes a from-scratch implementation of Swift, or any other language with similar features, can Apple then sue them over these patents?

Yes, Apple can sue you for making use of their patents w/o a formal license in place!

> Or does AL prevent this?

No! The Apache License protects users who use code from the project in question, but does not allow you to use those patents for other purposes.

To give a parallel example:

I license a photograph of two kids in overalls to put it on a poster and sell it.

That does not give me permission to use that image on playing cards, porcelain dolls, or other avenues.

https://www.farmanddairy.com/columns/the-story-behind-the-fa...

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#204

Post by niutech »

saagarjha wrote: post #200
dom96 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is one very real reason to avoid languages owned by huge companies like Google's Go and Apple's Swift. They can and will do evil things, instead of supporting them please consider supporting smaller languages which are often just as good or better as Swift/Go.

Such as? Many of the newer languages I’m seeing, notably Swift and Go, but also TypeScript, ReasonML, and Rust have their development backed by one corporation.

Such as Julia (https://julialang.org/), which is general-purpose and open-source.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#205

Post by dragonwriter »

jlokier wrote: post #201
dragonwriter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you’re a company sued asking for less than what the cost of fighting would be, it’s in your interest to cut a deal. Or, it's in your interest to fight and make it as expensive as possible for the person making the claim to prosecute it, if you have a good case, because while it's an iterated game, not a single round, and you need to make sure the next however many potential trolls (whether the same with a ne…

Realistically, most small companies can't afford to fight a large one over a patent infringement claim, regardless of the merits of the case. It might be worth a couple of rounds of letters saying "we don't believe your claims to be valid", but if the aggressor continues into litigation, the legal fees can quickly become overwhelming. As in more than the defendant's business is worth. Individuals writing open source…

> Realistically, most small companies can't afford to fight a large one over a patent infringement claim

Sure; the hypothetical was “if you're a company”, not “if you're a much smaller company”. Power assymetry definitely affects the options here.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#206

Post by wool_gather »

tom_mellior wrote: post #198
Twisell wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your going this way you must also take account for "reimplementation from scratch under restrictive licence”. Apache license don’t say anything about clean room reimplementation under other licence because it’s a tricky subject beyond the scope of the license. I personally think that if someone reimplement Swift, name it Schwift, guarantee it’s 200% faster (for some reasons), and then sell commercial licence of th…

> I personally think that if someone reimplement Swift, name it Schwift, guarantee it’s 200% faster (for some reasons), and then sell commercial licence of that it should be sued Should? What rule, law, or moral code does it break to reimplement something?

If you start from a position of strong support for broad legal protection of "intellectual property", I can see that there would be an argument that a programming language as a whole could be locked up by a patent. As a possible analogy, (my understanding is that) Lego held a patent on the bricks at some point, and no clones could be produced because of that.

Like you, I would have a pretty hard time being convinced that this was actually a good idea, though.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#207

Post by [deleted] »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #95
fabianhjr wrote: post #82

Just to bring clarity on what has been patented on one of the patents: Monad Maybe where Nothing >>= _ = Nothing (Just x) >>= f = f x Those three lines, implementing the Maybe Monad/bind operation, are commonplace in all functional languages. (They just called it Optional instead of Maybe and "chaining" instead of "bind"/>>=) ( https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/LanguageGuide/OptionalChai... ) EDIT: The second one lin…

Your example can be implemented in many different ways. This patent claims one or more ways but not all of them. 1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium with instructions stored therein, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: receiving a first request to compile a first set of program instructions coded in a first high-level language, the first high-…

[deleted]

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#208

Post by gcb0 »

niutech wrote: post #204
saagarjha wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? Many of the newer languages I’m seeing, notably Swift and Go, but also TypeScript, ReasonML, and Rust have their development backed by one corporation.

Such as Julia ( https://julialang.org/ ), which is general-purpose and open-source.

> julialang.org > no mention of "license" > "Julia is a NumFocus project"

it is a non-profit corporation, but still a corporation. Whose life depend on donations from the owners of the other languages you compared julia against.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#209

Post by Midnightas »

saagarjha wrote: post #200
dom96 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is one very real reason to avoid languages owned by huge companies like Google's Go and Apple's Swift. They can and will do evil things, instead of supporting them please consider supporting smaller languages which are often just as good or better as Swift/Go.

Such as? Many of the newer languages I’m seeing, notably Swift and Go, but also TypeScript, ReasonML, and Rust have their development backed by one corporation.

C++.

Re: Apple is patenting Swift features

#210

Post by andrekandre »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #84
jofer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key difference is that software is already covered by copyright. Identical copies violate copyright for software. For a mechanical device, identical copies generally don't violate copyright (trademarks, text, etc aside). Mechanical devices need patents for the design, as a competitor can easily re-implement an absolutely identical design. It's often clear by inspection how it's made. A different device that accompl…

Patents protect how something is done. Copyrights protect what you make (e.g.,. expression of idea).

the “expression of idea” is precisely “how something is done” or am i missing something...

idea: superhuman who flys around saving people

expression: superman, alternative expression: ultraman

both protected respectively by copyright (imagery, stories, movies etc)... do they also need patents?

i think the answer here is “no” and it’s the same for software... but again, please correct if i’m missing something

edit: spelling/formatting

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