SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Apple's mobile phone language Swift has some sort of "optionals chaining" that Apple finds novel enough to patent.
From the discussion, it appears Apple is intentionally using an Apache 2 license to ensure that access to this feature remains freely available. (Insert obligatory IANAL disclaimer.) Any Soylentils care to weigh in?
https://forums.swift.org/t/apple-is-indeed-patenting-swift-features/19779
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Apple Patents Programming Language Feature
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 19 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
(1)
All who joy would win Must share it --
Happiness was born a twin.
-- Lord Byron
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Subsentient on Monday January 28 2019, @05:44AM (2 children)
Eat shit and die in a fire, Apple.
Tim Cook, you're human garbage who's turning a once respectable company into a cancer that is devouring the IT sector and consumer's rights.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:07AM
Apple ][
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Monday January 28 2019, @11:15PM
If Apple is using the Apache license to make sure that the feature is available, then my guess is that they are filing the patent to prevent it from falling into a patent troll's hands.
I am no fan of software patents, and look forward to the day that they are all scrapped. In the meantime, the more patents that stay out of the hands of 'bad actors', the better. While Apple has engaged in patent-litigation many times before, they also have a fairly good record of sharing and open-sourcing some of their work too. I won't call them angels, but this particular activity could well be in good faith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:28AM
Are they patenting the syntax and meaning, or the implementation?
(Score: 3, Informative) by coolgopher on Monday January 28 2019, @07:13AM (5 children)
Save nagiviation operator [wikipedia.org]. Syntactic sugar.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday January 28 2019, @08:13AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday January 28 2019, @03:18PM (1 child)
this looks a *really* common logic expression - what *exactly* is the patent for in swift?
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday January 29 2019, @12:07AM
Feel free to decipher it [google.com] yourself. I can't stand patentese.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @12:37AM
Sounds like the SQL Coelesce operator, which is part of the SQL standard I believe.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:44PM
Ah, just a Maybe monad. However, I don't trust any patent employees to recognize a binary operator if it was shoved up their ass, let alone prior art.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:25AM (3 children)
Apple is dying.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @08:10AM (2 children)
Apple is dying again?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @08:34AM
Stop talking to yoself, you crazy AC fuck.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 28 2019, @02:30PM
Apple is dying still.
As a once card carrying Apple fanboy and long time developer in the 80's and 90s, those of us would laugh at the fact of the frequent predictions Apple is dying, going out of business, etc. Apple has been dying or going out of business each and every year since 1981. Although in the years since the iPhone, I think people finally quit predicting that.
I hadn't become anti-Apple until the smartphone patent wars. Bouncy scrolling? Slide to unlock? Really? In one foreign court, (don't remember details now), in an Apple vs Samsung patent suit over tablet designs, Apple claimed, with a straight face, that of the universe of design possibilities, that Samsung had chosen to make its tablets thin and light weight. As if doing so was some kind of exclusive right of Apple.
Today, I would not mind one bit to see Apple slide into irrelevance and disappear.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by gtomorrow on Monday January 28 2019, @08:45AM
http://endsoftpatents.org/ [endsoftpatents.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Monday January 28 2019, @09:22AM (2 children)
Note that software patents are invalid in the USA and the EU.
USA: Software patents under United States patent law [wikipedia.org]
EU (European Patent Convention, which covers more countries than members of the European Union): Software patents under the European Patent Convention [wikipedia.org]
That said, the law does not stop anything with a legal personality from applying for a patent, and patent examiners don't always get application of the law correct*. Unfortunately, getting a patent struck down (for ineligibility) takes time and money that many people and companies don't have: it is cheaper to pay off a 'patent troll' than to to get the patent invalidated. The 'patent trolls' rely on this as a way of making money.
So, it can be argued that this is a defensive move from Apple: obtaining a patent (that should not have been granted) prevents someone else from obtaining a patent (that should not be granted) on the same thing, then attempting to shake down Apple, or other people/organisations.
The only way I can see this improving is if organisations that assert patents that are later shown to be invalid pay triple damages** to anyone they have extorted money from - i.e. refund three time all legal fees incurred by the victim and repay three times however much they obtained in 'licensing' from the victim. After all, the 'should have known' their patent was invalid.
*The patent agencies are under a lot of political pressure to allow software patents.
**Or something like that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Monday January 28 2019, @12:27PM
Apple has enough money and clout to actually do something about software patents. That they behave in a so utilitarian way tells me they are just another brand in the system.
Apple rested on its laurels three times already, a pretty lucky company in a world where the first big mistake is usually also the last.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @10:56PM
Yeah, well, both The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the US Patent Office disagree with you on that. The former keep disagreeing with Supreme Court decisions as well. Good luck getting any of it to stick, and in the mean time look forward to hugely expensive and lengthy court cases.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @05:22PM
Oh look, Apple programmers have figured out what a monad is.