Apple Patent Blocking PNG Development

Daniel writes: "Apple has a patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,379,129) on compositing a source and destination image using a mask image. This patent appears to read on alpha channel transparency, which the PNG and MNG file formats use. APPLE has declared in their patent statement to the Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group that their patent is only available for RAND Licensing. Since this patent appears to read on the PNG file format, Apple is hampering work on the PNG and MNG file formats. Perhaps Apple would like to clarify this situation by explicitly stating that this patent does not cover the PNG and MNG file formats or by RF Licensing their patent to the PNG and MNG development groups. Alternatively, the PNG and MNG developers are asking people to submit prior art in order to invalidate Apple's patent. SGI in particular appears to have prior art with their 'blendfunction.' Make sure the prior art you submit is older than May 08, 1992, the filing date of Apple's patent."

Comments

You think THAT's bad...

[Tsar]

You know how, when you type the last character that'll fit on the last line in a text window, the top line disappears, all the other lines move up one, and the cursor appears in the first position of a new blank line?

IBM has a patent on that.

Outdated, irrelevant facts w/o more info

[90XDoubleSide]

The patent statement was last updated in July, and in October Apple made a public statement that they would no longer support any patent agreement for web standards except royalty-free. Does anyone else see problems in the reporting here?

Who honestly believes Apple would try to milk this almost certainly invalid patent? What do they gain by going after PNG? I think everyone will agree that web standards help Apple, and they are not going to do something against their best interest.

And what is up with /. posting stories about months-old facts with no new developments anyways? I think it is good for /. to bring this issue up and get Apple to clarify their position, but listen to the report: "APPLE has declared in their patent statement to the Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group that their patent is only available for RAND Licensing." They make it sound like it just happened! And while I'm complaining, why is "Apple" in all caps ;)

Re:1992?

[hearingaid]

1992 is the filing date.

It no longer matters under U.S. law when they claim invention, under the new patent regime, which is since 1987 IIRC. (The U.S. in the eighties amended its patent and copyright laws to make them conformant to international standards.)

As another poster pointed out, they're allowed public disclosure of the content of the patent for a year before their filing date. Any earlier disclosure and they themselves are prior art.

However, for prior art from other companies or from private individuals, the day before the patent is filed is early enough to qualify as valid prior art. There was an interesting case with the patent on the Magic: the Gathering collectible card game, as TSR released a competitor to Magic about four days before the patent was filed. Hasbro now owns both companies, but I believe Steve Jackson Games was still able to use the TSR game as prior art to knock down the collectible card game patent.

Yes, the U.S. Patent Office lets you patent the rules to games. No other patent office in the world does. There are worse things than software patents out there.