Slashdot Mirror
PNG Group Unconcerned About Apple's Patent
melquiades writes: "A recent story raised concerns that Apple's patent on some forms of alpha compositing was blocking the development of PNG, MNG and SVG. Not so, says Greg Roelofs, a member of the PNG group: 'The PNG group did discuss the Apple patent several weeks ago, and we decided it was completely irrelevant to PNG itself, almost certainly irrelevant to the pnmtopng utility and to PNGs animated extension, MNG, and probably irrelevant to SVG as well.' Here's the article on OS Opinion. So if it's not a big deal, why was there a general call for prior art to overturn Apple's patent? It looks like some PNG developers got worried, but the core team thinks there's no problem. Is this just a case of the right hand not knowing that the left hand is paranoid?" Once bitten, twice shy?
Its just leftover paranoia from the problem Unisys had with people using the GIF format. The PNG group seems to have a good understanding of the Apple patent, from what I read in the article.
What's actually relevent is what Apple's lawyers think. It's going to be expensive to fight a legal battle, so expensive that anyone who's been harassed by Unisys has folded, even though there is a fair chance that their patent would be declared invalid if it came up in court.
You mean like the way Unisys did with the GIF format?
I use PNG's everyday, as it is the file formate that firework's (macromedia) uses. It contains a "web layer" and when created in firworks you can create "slice guides" and rules. Similair to how a PSD contains layer. The only difference is, I can open a PNG in IE, though I wont see the layers, and it will be a REALLY big file, compared to what it would be if it was exported out as a gif or jpg or I guess a flat PNG.
mediadiva
yes.. and if you do a bit of investigation you'll notice all browsers support them, including IE. In fact, you'll also notice that hordes of websites also use PNGs.
There is practically no decent reason for any website to still be using GIF files as the conversion of both the html and files is pretty easy...
PNGs are also way technically better.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Apparently the patent only covers compositing of images that start from several sources. This is all very well for PNG images, as all the data is stored in one file. However, once the PNG is in a web browser, it may get composited with other images from another source. If the page has a background image and an alpha'd PNG on top of it, surely that would then infringe the patent?
Probably not a problem for Microsoft with IE - they would probably just have a little patent fight with Apple - but for free browsers this could be a problem.
There's a few interesting threads on
usenet about it as well.
All in all, simply self induced FUD.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The idea of a patent, is for the inventor of a technology, idea, whatever to have rights over it for 20 years.
We all know Apple wasn't the first, and therefor they shouldn't have the patent. I'm not worried about it either, but I would like another stupid patent overturned.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
While we're at it, let's spend all our time and effort preparing to defend PNG against patents on automated shoe manufacturing and quack magnetic therapy devices. After all, "only a court can decide" whether PNG software infringes on those, too.
The patent itself specifically contrasts what it covers with the use of an alpha channel, such as is used by PNG. It is obviously not a threat to anyone who bothers to read the patent.
Aside from that, PNG was designed to avoid patent issues by people who knew what they were doing, in an drawn-out open process where anyone could have pointed out weaknesses. It's based on well-established techniques with a long history of prior art. Your first assumption should be that any patent either doesn't affect PNG, or is so blatantly invalid that nobody would ever dare take it to court, not that there's trouble ahead because a one-line description of a patent sounds vaguely like something PNG does.
You can't live your life shrieking in terror every time someone whispers "patent."
The problem isn't just that the system isn't great (or designed with software development in mind, and therefore ill suited for it), but also that the system is horribly implemented, with those deciding on validity of patents being filed, knowing very little about them and generally ending up granting them.
Of course inventors should be paid - but what's an invention? The theme right now seems to be "quick, patent it before everyone else thinks of it" whereas it was supposed to be "patent it so others don't steal it from you."
There is absolutely no reason one the first company to patent an obvious thing should have exclusivity to it. (and of course the whole thing is weighted very heavily against open source development, but that's a different issue)
sic transit gloria mundi
There are lots of patents that discuss alpha blending. They don't affect PNG.
The important thing to remember about patents is "don't go looking for trouble". Don't worry about new patents that come out -- wait until the patent owner comes looking for you. If you look far enough in the patent database, you will certianly find patents that can be interpreted to cover your idea. Unless you bring it to their attention, or are a direct competitor, most patent owners won't care about you. Most companies view patents as a defensive play -- they don't really care about them, they just grab the patents so that if a competitor sues them for patent infringement, they can sue back. E.g. Via countersuing Intel on patents.
READ THE PATENT. And not just the claims, the whole thing. It specifically disclaims alpha-blending, mentioning it as a well known and inferior precursor.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Fear Itself
Misinformation on this matter has caused many open-source advocates to incorrectly accuse Apple of holding back Open Web technologies.
Let's hope that cooler heads prevail and that fear-debunking articles such as this one are more widely read."
It is amazing how worked up everyone got in November when they learned that a company that supports web standards and has a public policy of royalty-free licensing for them (as of October) had responded in June to a call to disclose all patents to the PNG group that they should be aware of for infringement issues in the future.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
If Apple's patent is valid, nothing put out by the PNG group infringes. However, when an application, say, Mozilla, displays a PNG in front of some other graphic and uses the PNG's alpha mask to do partial transparency, that would infringe. Similarly, when a Gnome or KDE desktop displays a PNG icon and uses the partial transparency to have a smooth and not a jagged edge, that would infringe. But just storing the alpha mask in the file doesn't collide with anything in the patent.
In practice, there's so much prior art that the patent will be dead meat once it hits a court. Traditionally, the patent holder deals with this by licensing for a fee small enough that it's cheaper to pay than fight, and in this case, perhaps giving an out to the free software folks, while possibly trying to get a bit of cash from others. But in this case, I suspect that even that strategy is not going to work.