By patenting this language feature Apple has very clearly stated that they are "making a claim of ownership" as it were of this feature across all languages and non-derivative implementations.

...which is a perfect example of why software patents shouldn't exist in the first place. One could implement this feature in any number of novel, unique ways therefore the patent is nothing more than a claim on a broad concept rather than a specific implementation (which is what patents are supposed to cover).

The paradox of patents on software is this: If the patent covers what it's supposed to cover (a specific implementation) the patent will be useless because anyone could implement what amounts to the same thing using different methods, languages, whatever. If the patent covers a broad concept it will prevent anyone from using it or innovating in that entire domain until the patent expires. Completely defeating the purpose of having patents in the first place. It will also likely (after millions upon millions of dollars wasted in lawsuits) be ruled invalid as being overly broad.

Software patents are inherently a bad idea and should be done away with.

They're about innovating technological abilities, and disclosing them in exchange for limited monopoly; it's not about specific products or specific implementations.

If it were just about implementations then all patents could be easily circumvented and there would be no reward in exchange for the full disclosure of a new invention.

(Design patents do cover specific implementations at the morphological level.)

This patent is about how Apple's compiler implements some programing language features. It does not protect the programming language feature itself. Another compiler that employs a different 'how' can implement the same programming feature. So, if you don't want to infringe on this patent, you are forced to invent (or use) another way of doing the same thing.

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 accomplishes the same task in a slightly different way doesn't infringe on the patent.

Software already has protection against identical copies through copyright. The key difference is that software patents go farther; they claim to cover the concept. Any implementation of the concept violates the patent. Re-implementing software to accomplish the same mathematical concept in a different way still violates the patent.

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

Yes, yes you can.

While I'm sure that you can find examples of software patents that have patented a specific implementation of a given idea, you can also find mechanical patents that claim a broad concept. These patents exist for two main reasons: 1) They discourage competitors from attempting anything within the broad concept. Even if a judge would probably rule a patent unenforceable, the risk of litigation is enough to make legal departments recommend against doing things that are covered by the patent. 2) They give companies ammo when they do get to litigation. If Company A sues Company B for infringement on one of its patents, Company B can come back and countersue because it holds a large war chest of other broad patents. Even if most of them are unenforceable, each one poses its own risk that some part of it is held up and the infringing party is liable for damages. The quantity of patents involved (and the legal costs for litigating such a case) help push companies into a quicker out-of-court settlement.

The problem as I see it is not with software patents versus mechanical patents. It's with broad patents versus specific patents. There needs to be a mechanism for easily challenging the validity of a patent after it is issued.

Edit: For context, I'm a mechanical engineer who's worked on design & development of technical consumer products.

Patenting software amounts to patenting algorithms, which is basically patenting math. It's far broader in scope by its very nature. On top of that, it's not hard to get software patents on things that are obvious, often by simply patenting "$well_established_process, but in software".

(There really is no such thing as a software patent.)

A smaller company could come up with a unique engine design, but without patent protection, a bigger company could just drop by and take the design and build it themselves. In other words, the larger company would get R&D "for free". In the engineering world, only by "building" the design can you make money (in general).

So without patents, there would be no reason for smaller companies to exist, simply because such companies would have no counter-measure for their lack of financial resources.

[1]: Nothing here means "no physical resources". The big costs would be labor and compute (depending on the idea). But I would argue that labor is a bigger cost for a company that would like to build an engine at scale (initial design, manufacturing, testing, supply chain, and so on).

So that might actually be an argument in favor of software patents, if they actually did protect the interests of small companies. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to implement a new idea in software without using a lot of other recent ideas at the same time, and if all the recent ideas are patented, no one will be able do anything that isn't 20 years out of date unless they have a defensive patent portfolio of their own.

Marketing budget is something inherent in small vs. big companies in all industries, so I do not agree that the fact that software and hardware share this makes them similar.

Your example does demonstrate a benefit of software patents in theory, but is this how they are typically used in practice?

So, I invent a method that dramatically improves search engines. How do I commercialize it for “nothing”, if I’m not one of the few companies with access to a huge data set, and cannot protect my invention with patents?

And yes, there are definitely exceptions, but my point is that the general case in software != the general case in engineering, which is why you cannot directly compare the effect the patent system has on the two fields.

No. The Apache License 2.0 does not work that way. You are allowed to copy and use everything in the Swift language to your own liking in a similar manner to the MIT and BSD permissive licenses. However if you then try and begin a lawsuit against Apple for anything in what you copied, your rights are terminated, therefore invalidating your suit. The Apache License also gives you access to the patents in the language. It's a bit of a hack like GPL is, except that you are allowed to do just about anything with the code except sue.

The license, at least the way I see it, is a signal that Apple isn't in the business of patenting language features. In fact, in a way, Apple is using their resources to gobble up space that patent trolls can never again exploit. Once a patented feature is released under Apache 2.0, I know of no way that it can be undone.

So if you implement the claims of the patent in something that isn't derived from the Swift code you are not covered under The Apache license.

It is a purposeful limitation of the Apache 2.0 license that the "patent pool" effect is limited to the project.

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?

> 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...

Any number of people could try to sue you for any number of things. Thats unfortunately how lawsuits work.

You could also attempt to get another license from Apple for your work. They might not be willing to do this unless you somehow could guarantee all patent licensees for your version of Swift would be unmotivated (by some legal clause or agreement) to sue them as well.

I doubt Apple would go through the work of getting a patent for something that they already openly give out licenses for people to use (via Apache 2) unless it was meant purely for defensive purposes. So I'd be shocked if they went after a from-scratch Swift implementation except for trademark purposes (aka, you can't call name it Swift if it is a partial implementation)

This is not, by itself, a bad thing. In fact, it's good.

However, is there any way Apple could change their minds in the future and start wielding the patent against others? To me, that is the danger of granting patents even to people who appear to be acting as a good guy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19002470

Companies that are mere consumers of IT have been sued by patent trolls, and paid up.

Also, "using Swift" isn't in the claims ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When drafting the claims writer (patent attorney or agent usually) will add clauses to work around prior art. You can't just add unrelated features though, the features need to have synergy to represent a single invention.

[I've read a lot on USA patents but only worked directly with UK and EU patents.

This is not legal advice.]

https://therealdanvega.com/blog/2013/08/20/groovys-null-safe...

Not sure if that's in Rust, Kotlin, C#, or Ruby, or in Groovy's Antlr 4 parser.

That is, in Rust you'd use Option::map or Option::and_then, there is no equivalent to the `?.` and `?[]` operators, the `?` operator (or `try!` macro) is a shortcut for an "unwrapping guard".

    x = [ foo: [ bar: 1] ]
    x.foo.bar // 1
    x.boo?.bar // null because x.boo is null
    x.boo?.bar = 1 // succeeds even though x.boo is null
    x.boo // still null

Patents protect how you something, not what you do.

The only special sauce I can think of is that C# also implements null-lifting for most operators in the language, which is not necessarily a good thing because it treats null as "unknown" rather than "missing" - e.g. a + b works on int?, and will produce null if either a or b is null. With Boolean operators, it's even clearer - false & null is false, true | null is true, but true & null is null, and false | null is null. But quite often this is not what I actually want! If null really means that the value is missing, then a + b shouldn't even compile for optionals. But in practice, I'd say that vast majority of all uses of Nullable are to denote missing rather than indeterminate values.

So if you fork Swift, you’re covered. If you don’t form Swift, then you’re not covered.

Note that the Apache license is much stronger / better than the PATENTS.txt files accompanying projects like those from Microsoft / Facebook, because those usually don’t cover forks and are designed to protect the parent company.

Nope. Prior art is the only protection against patent trolls. Patents are no protection at all against trolls because patent trolls are unlikely to infringe any of your patents, due to their sole business being patent litigation.

There are two reasons for Apple to get these patents: defensive and offensive patent litigation against other companies in the industry. Apple has a history of using offensive patent litigation, going so far as using it as a weapon to keep industry wages low. https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-threatened-palm-with-pa...

But there is no way to really be sure. Because they may have filed something before or after (within the 1 year) public disclosure.

Its just a mutually assured destruction arms race. The system is broken.

Anyone would be free to use the patent. But trolls can't sue with it.

Then you whip out your defensive patents and demand that IBM licenses your IP for 3% of their revenue. (Win-win cross licensing ensues...)

Patent trolls are a different animal though. However, having some good patents may at least protect you from willful infringement (increased damages)

I wonder if it's time for a Patent Denuclearization... but I'm not exactly sure how that could look like.

Prior use in public would count as "prior art" and void a patent too.