Slashdot Mirror
Apple Sues Freetype - NOT (updated)
Don Giovanni writes: "Apple Computer, Inc. has finally filed suit against the Freetype Project for violation of US patents #US5325479 and #US5159668. Linux Today has the story." This from the company that actually licensed Amazon's One-Click patent. Update: 03:30 PM EST by C :We're sorry. The link referred to in this article is incorrect. We're checking up on this information, and if we have any more to report, we will. However as of right now, the consensus is that this is a hoax.
This is freetypes page explaining the copywrite issues.
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The link goes to a completely different Linux Today story, and there's nothing about it on the freetype home page. Is this just a rumour, or is there anything substantiating it?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
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You are a fucking moron.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
STATUS UPDATE (31-12-1999):
We are finally in contact with Apple's legal department. However, we'll be unable to comment our discussion until they take an official position regarding the patents. This could take some time so don't expect anything soon.
This page will shortly be updated with more detailed information on the patented "inventions" and what can be done meanwhile.
--> STATUS UPDATE (12-mar-2000):
What is this page about ?There are sadly no news on the patent front. However, we have started working on a new auto-hinting module, that will ultimately replace the TrueType bytecode interpreter for those builds that cannot accept the patent issue.
Please go to the FreeType Auto-Hinting Resources Page for more information.
This page is an attempt to sum up various information which recently emerged on the FreeType mailing lists after the discovery that Apple owns several US patents on TrueType. Its purpose is to explain what the patents are, how they can affect us and what can be done.
Who are we ?We are the developers of the FreeType engine, a free and portable TrueType rasterising library. FreeType was written from scratch from the TrueType specification published by Apple and Microsoft, and thus qualifies as a "clean room" implementation of this standard. It is distributed with a BSD-like license, which allows any kind of developers to include it in their products, be they commercial or not.
What are the TrueType patents involved ?We recently discovered that Apple owns several patents related to TrueType. A simple advanced search on IBM's Intellectual Property Network website (http://www.patents.ibm.com/advquery) shows that Sampo Kaasila, who were the original TrueType architect at Apple, was granted 5 patents for Apple related to digital font technology. Three of them seem to relate directly to the TrueType specification :
Patent #1 : US5155805: Method and apparatus for moving control points in displaying digital typeface on raster output devices
Filed on May, 8 1989
Patent #2 : US5159668: Method and apparatus for manipulating outlines in improving digital typeface on raster output devices
Filed on May, 8 1989 too. Actually, the two patents were filed and granted concurrently.
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Do the patents affect FreeType ?:Patent #3 : US5325479: Method and apparatus for moving control points in displaying digital typeface on raster output devices
Filed on May 28, 1992 which is the continuation of patent #1. The difference with this patent are extremely subtle, and we fail to see what it covers which isn't in patent #1.
Apparently yes, it affects the bytecode interpreter used to hint TrueType outlines. It also affects any other similar engine that render TrueType fonts per se the specification.
Note that the TrueType specification used to write FreeType doesn't mention any patent, nor any pending patents. We used the "TrueType Font Format Specification" document, version 1.0, published in 1990 and available from Apple under the reference "ADPA M0825LL/A". None of the successive releases of this paper document, be they in paper or electronic forms mentioned them either. (And yes, we're speaking of the documents produced by both Apple and Microsoft).
In case of violation, how would it affect FreeType ?It's hard to tell, as this depends mostly on Apple's response to the situation. We can imagine having to modify some parts of the code in order to not use the patented "invention". Depending on the patents' peculiarities, this may come at the price of inferior rendered quality, if we're unable to find an alternate algorithm producing the same results.
Another deep question is to know what to do about the currently released versions of FreeType (from 1.0 to 1.3.1). Because of its huge success, FreeType has been succesfully used in a great variety of products like graphics libraries, font servers, printers, web browser plugins, server-side web plugins and more... It is also heavily distributed through the Internet, and the library comes on the latest RedHat and Caldera CDs for example.
We do not reference all the projects that use our library, simply because there are too much and too changing. Many of them are open source and freely distributed, updated and integrated into other products. Clearly, a patent violation would have more than hairy consequences.
We are very concerned that this affair doesn't become a PR disaster for both of Apple and FreeType, as nobody would gain from public backlash. What are patents ?Strictly speaking, when a patent is granted, it permits its owner to excludemembers of the public (those members can be real people or simply companies) from making, using or selling the claimed invention.
Note that a common misconception is that the patent gives its owner the right the make, use or sell its invention. It only gives the owner the ability to exclude others, though he may himself/herself be forbidden from using the invention due to the existence of another patent or other legal restrictions. For example, person A is allowed to patent an improvement over an invention patented by person B. In order to use his/her invention, person A will need the permission from person B. If person C wants to use the improved invention, he/she will need permission from both person A and B !
In practice, a patent owner usually sells limited rights to the invention to customers who want to use its invention. The amount of "permission", i.e. the licensing fees determined by the vendor and customer and can vary enormously. However, nothing prevents a patent owner from excluding any use of its invention, wathever the amount of money proposed by the customer.
On the other hand, patents cover implementations, and not ideas. If someone comes with a different "apparatus" that produces the same results than a patented invention, he/she shall not fall under the patent protection and ask for "permission".
Patents were introduce to encourage inventors to publish their work, in exchange of increased intellectual property protection. A US patent runs for 20 years from the date it is filed to the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). A US Patent only applies to making, using and selling the invention in the US .
Finally, here is an extract from the US PTO brochure on patentability :
In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if: ?(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent,? or ?(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United States . . .?
If the invention has been described in a printed publication anywhere in the world, or if it has been in public use or on sale in this country before the date that the applicant made his/her invention, a patent cannot be obtained. If the invention has been described in a printed publication anywhere, or has been in public use or on sale in this country more than one year before the date on which an application for patent is filed in this country, a patent cannot be obtained. In this connection it is immaterial when the invention was made, or whether the printed publication or public use was by the inventor himself/herself or by someone else. If the inventor describes the invention in a printed publication or uses the invention publicly, or places it on sale, he/she must apply for a patent before one year has gone by, otherwise any right to a patent will be lost.
Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be refused if the differences would be obvious. The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention. For example, the substitution of one material for another, or changes in size, are ordinarily not patentable.
Note that the second paragraph makes it hard to understand why patent #3 was granted, given that the TrueType specification was fully published by Apple in 1990, two years before the patent was filed.
What about software patents ?In the US, software patents are considered as normal patents. Moreover, it is possible, through careful use of legal language in the patent application, to patent software algorithms. This is well known from the infamous LZW compression algorithm used for the GIF graphics file format. Another case is the RSA algorithm for prime computations used in many security products.
In Europe, software and algorithms _cannot_ be patented, which means that a european developer is free to develop, use, distribute and market in Europe any software he/she wants, even if it uses algorithms patented under US laws. However, the US patent will apply as soon as he/she wants to distribute, sell or use its software in the US. Moreover, any other person who wants to use, distribute or sell its software in the US will fall under the patent "protection". It is clear that a US patent is also much an issue for any european developer.
The same applies to other countries where the US patent doesn't apply, and where the invention wasn't protected under the local patent office administration, when there is one.
Note that some countries have some aggreements with the US that make any US patent localy effective. Details of such countries are welcomed for updates on this page
LinksFreePatents.org
IBM's Intellectual Property Network
US Patent and Trademark Office Brochure on Patents
Trust the source!
This will hurt my karma but it had to be said.
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Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Quote:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813
Hi and welcome to VaporDOT News! All the news that we can make up and more!
Today's top stories:
Apple sues FreeType for patent infringement.
Microsoft produces version of Linux. Code Name: Windex.
Microsoft porting their popular Office produce to Linux.
Jon Katz writes highly interesting story about something non-Hellmouth related.
and finally
Linux Kernel 2.4 finally released!
The Tick - "Spoon!"
NEO - "There is no spoon."
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Note that:
Does this sound at all like our current system?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
These kind of mistakes totally negate Rob's argument against a K5 type submission system. They're not *reviewing* anything, just some cursory skimming for keywords or submissions by "preferred" individuals.
What does Rob do anyway? He doesn't work on the code that much anymore. Hell, he even has someone else read his mail for him! If going over submissions is his only responsibility now, you'd think he try a little harder to give a damn.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
Rob, shit like this is what gives your critics ammunition. "We're checking up on this information," well shit, you didn't check up on this while it was in the submission queue? Isn't that what it's there for, to give the authors time to check stories before posting them?
What the hell happened? Did you get lazy this time? There's been a lot of evidence lately that links never, ever get checked before a story is posted. Every other story is either a broken link, or the synopsis is completely different from the actual story content. It's becoming a fucking joke.
Please, Rob. You, Jeff, timothy, jamie, michael, everyone take a month off and let someone else handle the site. Come back when you're ready to do your job correctly. It's becoming pretty clear you're burning out, it's doing great harm to the quality of the site, and something needs to be done about it.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
"So what if Cmdr. Taco made a mistake (I'm not just kissing ass here)"
So what if the mistake could have been avoided if one freaking link was clicked on? It would be one thing if this was an elaborate hoax, but all the submitter did was link to a Linux Today which isn't related to the issue at hand. And it was sent to the front page.
"Newspapers make errors all the time and retract/correct."
You're correct. They also verify their sources. Tell me, how many times has USA Today or the Washington Post had hoax stories on their front page? I'm not saying that Rob has to play detective, but what's so hard about clicking on one link to check the story?
And don't hand me the argument that Slashdot is "Rob's baby." It stopped being "Rob's baby" when it joined the ranks of VA Linux and the OSDN.
This mistake could have been easily avoided. But if Rob is so haggled that he can't even click on a link to verify something, then maybe he should rethink his priorities...
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters