Apple is patenting Swift features

https://forums.swift.org/t/apple-is-indeed-patenting-swift-features/19779

by maxdesiatov • 7 years ago

580 208 7 years ago

forums.swift.org

dmos62• 7 years ago

These patents seem to be a countermeasure against patent trolls, since the code uses the Apache license. Quoting from link:

Apache license gives the right to use patents required to use the code (assuming the original author had those rights), and the code implementing optional chaining in the compiler is Apache licensed. So, the only thing Apple having a patent on optional chaining does is to stop frivolous suits from patent trolls. It can't be used for any kind of nefarious power play by Apple, which is what OP was worried about.

skohan• 7 years ago

To echo a comment in the linked thread: what does the Apache license say about other implementations? If I want to create my own implementation of the Swift compiler, or create another language with optional chaining, would this license protect me? Or does it only protect the use of this implementation?

kbsletten• 7 years ago

Well, given that Rust and C# also have these features I think the likelihood that the patent is upheld is unlikely. I guess they could threaten you with it since lawyers are expensive, but it seems silly to me.

bad_user• 7 years ago

The Apache license covers derived works.

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.

hdra• 7 years ago

Thats not the only thing, no? Doesn't it also prevent e.g. other people/company from including that feature in their own programming language that doesn't use Swift at all?

hopler• 7 years ago

Only if those people compete with Apple's profits.

thekingofh6• 7 years ago

--edit-- see below comments.. this may not be so simple.

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.

riskable2• 7 years ago

Yes. This, exactly.

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.

black-tea• 7 years ago

Someone could even implement the feature in a dynamic language like Python or Lisp for a particular application. Does that mean the application is infringing the patent because they didn't use Swift?

cestith4• 7 years ago

It also prevents any fully independent implementation of a compatible Swift since it wouldn't be from the Apache-licensed source.

subb2• 7 years ago

I'm not too knowledgeable about patents, but maybe we need a "liberal" patent? Something that can't be used to sue other people, but protects you from being sued.

snissn2• 7 years ago

theoretically publishing an explanation of the methods and not patenting it is sufficient

save_ferris• 7 years ago

How would that work? If company A receives a "defensive" patent on a technology design, and company B decides to use that patented design without a license, seems like they'd be able to without any recourse. In which case, does the patent system even make sense anymore? I think that's the bigger question in the context of software.

maxxxxx2• 7 years ago

Just publish all your findings and establish prior art and you should be ok. Or is there more to it?

jayd16• 7 years ago

That isn't exactly how defensive patents work. Part of the deal is to build up a portfolio you can counter sue with and then force a patent sharing agreement where the two parties agree not to sue either either for any patents.

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

eecc• 7 years ago

Optional chaining? You mean Apple got a patent for flatMap?

lenticular• 7 years ago

Don't you just love the USPO? They are severely understaffed for the increasing rate of patents. Any other gov't agency would just form a backlog, but instead they just approve things with little examination.

lern_too_spel• 7 years ago

These patents seem to be a countermeasure against patent trolls.

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...

cestith4• 7 years ago

Indeed. They sued Samsung for making a phone that was a rectangle with rounded corners as if every maker of watches, wallets, tables, beds, couches, previous cell phones, cafeteria trays, cars seats, coffee cups with handles, axe handles, power tools, sports rackets, three-ring binders, televisions, remote controls, radios, messenger bags, and briefcases didn't realize sharp pointy edges are uncomfortable.

ummonk• 7 years ago

Filing a patent on your art is a convenient way to put your prior art on the record against lawsuits by future patents.

tokyodude• 7 years ago

sure it can. you make something patentable. say AR lenses. You write an iOS app in Swift. Apple copies your lenses. When you go try to sue them they point out lose the right to use Swift

saghm2• 7 years ago

Is it actually a legitimate concern that a patent troll would be able to sustain a claim to syntactic sugar around a specific monad? It seems far more likely that a non-patent trolling entity would implement a similar feature in some other language (along with the languages that already have similar features) than a patent troll would sue and claim patent rights to it.

carterschonwald3• 7 years ago

Monads and do notation as prior art. Boring

davidgrenier2• 7 years ago

Thank you, I was wondering if they had patented a half-assed version of monads.

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

They haven't patented monads or any programming feature.

carterschonwald3• 7 years ago

option chaining definitely is that. seen in both swift and rust. and I guess in some styles of javascript too afaik

moomin• 7 years ago

Yep, also C# has the same damn thing specialized to optional chaining for the same exact reason. The Prior Art is Strong in This One.

kevin_b_er• 7 years ago

I wish you the best of luck at defending against Apple's lawyers backed by a patent system that no longer promotes the progress of science or useful arts.

carterschonwald3• 7 years ago

something something, i wish apple lawyers going after projects sponsored by microsoft. :)

duncanawoods• 7 years ago

Can we setup the equivalent of https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/ for programming language design?

If the patents are to defend the language then they should have no issue donating them to a dedidicated org which gives transparent and iron clad guarantee that they can never be used aggressively. If not, I expect them to pop in the next Apple vs. X thermonuclear ligigation where any and every bit of IP gets used as a weapon.

If we can't fix software patents in the courts then it might come down to us the devs to reject any language or API that doesn't sign up to into the appropriate non-agression pact. We need something similar for API copyright too. We are on a bad path right now where the big orgs have every incentive to be less open and more litigious.

thekingofh6• 7 years ago

Apache License 2.0 is as good as donating it. Just now, nobody can sue anyone else for that design feature.

Edit: actually, see below.

solomatov• 7 years ago

IANAL, but as far as I understand Apache 2.0, it grants patent license only in cases which were used in the original code, not universally.

nonsince• 7 years ago

This feature wasn’t even invented in Swift, the fact that a patent was granted on it shows the sorry state of technical policy making

swiley• 7 years ago

I think American patents changed some time in the past decade to match how they’re done in the rest of the world; The first person to patent the thing gets the rights completely regardless of the time or person the implementation is associated with.

brlewis• 7 years ago

Prior art still invalidates patents AFAIK. Unless there's some recent Fed Circuit decision that changes that.

pgeorgi• 7 years ago

But only in the first year after first publication. So if the feature was available elsewhere for long enough, no patent for anybody.

willio58• 7 years ago

Out of curiosity, which language would you say first implemented optionals?

klrr• 7 years ago

I don't know which specific language, but there been around since at least 80s I would guess.

davidgrenier2• 7 years ago

This is a specialisation of algebraic datatypes, it has to go at least as far back as SML.

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

Good thing this patent does not protect any programming language features.

(It protects how Apple implemented some features)

coldtea• 7 years ago

This is very disturbing. It's like Apple has gone insane. Computer languages are not supposed to be owned by any company. We learned this mistake with Java and APIs. Computer languages are supposed to be a part of the Commons, owned by everyone for the benefit of humanity, not the benefit of a greedy corporation.

Who "learned that"? The public (devs, etc) already knew and wanted that.

Companies however, have been patenting their languages and techniques since OS/360 or earlier (IBM, Oracle, MS, Google, and so on). So it's not as if "Apple has gone insane" at all, all big players do it. And not because they want to sue either -- you also need them to not be sued yourself oftentimes... (if Apple doesn't patent e.g. their "Optionals chaining" technique mentioning, what's to stop e.g. Oracle doing it and suing them?)

mathnmusic• 7 years ago

all big players do it

I don't know of any instances of Amazon, Google or Facebook trying to patent programming languages. Microsoft definitely did try this.

solarkraft3• 7 years ago

what's to stop e.g. Oracle doing it and suing them?

Proof that they had it before it was patented.

JKCalhoun• 7 years ago

what's to stop e.g. Oracle doing it and suing them?

Can you imagine every Swift app has to be deleted because of a competing patent claim?

Anyone remember LZW? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempel–Ziv–Welch#Patents

thekingofh6• 7 years ago

You are correct here, but the question is, is there a flaw in the Apache License then? Should it also include the patent grant for non-derived works, as long as someone adheres to the license?

scriptproof• 7 years ago

The future of Apple seems uncertain. Some says it is the beginning of the end.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenmcbride1/2019/01/21/the-...

Maybe the rescue plan is to become a patent troll?

empath75• 7 years ago

https://patents.justia.com/patent/9952841 This is the actual patent. I'm having a very difficult time understand what their actual claims are -- can someone explain it?

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

Read the claims section. That is what this patent protects.

uberman• 7 years ago

I don't quite understand.

The patent (9,952,841) seems to be about the language swift.

There is mention about language features describing the language, but I don't see a specific claim to any of them.

"optionals chaining" (the feature that everyone is alarmed about) is just one of the features listed. Other features mentioned include an "IDE" and "unicode" as well as support for "functions".

Am I missing something? Where is the claim on an specific language characteristic?

anonuser123456• 7 years ago

This is how I interpreted it. It doesn't seem to patent a feature in as much as Swift itself.

This actually seems quite legitimate from a 'patentability' standpoint. The precise mix of features coupled with syntax would definitely be patentable under existing law.

This does make it risky to implement a competing compiler however.

3JPLW• 7 years ago

This does make it risky to implement a competing compiler however.

Unless, of course, you can satisfy the terms of the license and include the copyright/license and a list of changes (which is indeed a little strange if it's actually a fresh implementation). That said, if you're needing to provide the same license, then you might as well fork it and not worry about starting from scratch.

int_19h4• 7 years ago

Remember that each claim stands by itself, unless it explicitly evokes another claim.

DannyBee3• 7 years ago

IP lawyer here. You should ignore everything but the claims, and see what the claims say.

So stare at https://patents.google.com/patent/US9952841B2/en

and look only at the claims.

To me, that set of claims is ... worrying

zamalek2• 7 years ago

IANAL, but those claims seem to describe .Net (multiple languages targeting a common IR?), so there's prior art.

2_listerine_pls• 7 years ago

Could you recomend me a book or course on how to file an utility patent? I took a mooc explaining the overall process but it lacks details.

aurelwu• 7 years ago

"Also, the new language provides two range operators, the half-closed (e.g., a . . . b) and closed (e.g., a . . . b) range operators, which are not found in the C language. " their examples for half-closed and closed are identical. I wonder how many such mistakes are in a patent filing in average and what the effect of such mistakes is.

sixstringtheory• 7 years ago

It's really interesting. They're describing the entire apparatus that's been built up to switch from ObjC to Swift and allow them to coexist using multistage compilation, and the recompilation of IR code to target newer devices (or for a few other enumerated reasons).

As someone who's been working on the platform for several years before Swift was announced and got to watch it all unfold, it's pretty incredible to see it described so succinctly. And definitely worrying as to the future direction of the work I've done.

Could you help us know any similar software development ecosystems that have been similarly patented, or anything else that might indicate how it could play out?

judge2020• 7 years ago

Patent text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9952841/en

I don't see how options chaining is specifically reserved, it's a patent on the entirety of Swift by the looks of it.

basil-rash• 7 years ago

Yes... I really don't understand what all the FUD is about. I don't think most people here have read the actual text. Otherwise we'd have people complaining that Apple is trying to patent things like two stage compilation.

thekingofh6• 7 years ago

It looks like there is an unintended consequence of the Apache License 2.0 of allowing a company to patent some functionality, and the only way to acquire that patent is to keep your implementation as a close fork of the original derived work. The question is, whether or not the patent grant for just using swift (downloading and running it), can cover other development work that is not associated with swift. If not then Apache License 2.0 actually seems to paradoxically reinforce the situation it is trying to avoid by tying implementation and copyright directly to patents, thereby boosting patents as a way to squash other open source projects. Any comment by an Apache person would be greatly appreciated.

fnord1232• 7 years ago

3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

Apple is a Contributor. They have given a patent grant on their contributions. If they didn't contribute something to Swift and they sue Swift other contributors for making a patent violation or their non-contributions, then all patent grants for Apple disappear and other contributors can sue Apple for anything that Swift uses that was patented.

IANAL.

slyrus• 7 years ago

So they're claiming (values) and &optional but in C?

skrowl• 7 years ago

As if Apple isn't a big enough threat to tech by designing their software to be incompatible with everyone else's hardware, now they want to spam technology patents on a PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. This is a horrible idea and only serves to stifle innovation.

Please keep it in mind next time you purchase a laptop, smartphone or tablet!

mikece• 7 years ago

Let's see if I have this right: Apple is patenting concepts in Swift then licensing it under Apache 2 in order to protect users of the language from patent trolls.

So they are patenting something for our protection?

petecox• 7 years ago

Apache will only protect the particular implementation, viz. LLVM.

It does open the door for gcc to inadvertently develop similar functionality and get sued. Not that there's, afaik, a cleanroom implementation of Swift.

russh• 7 years ago

Yes, lets hope they don't alter the terms of the deal (again) at a further date.

shmerl4• 7 years ago

Classic Apple hoarding software patents. Even if they don't use them, this looks like a threat move. Patenting programming language features is just sick.

Questions in that thread:

1. If a separate open-source programming language under Apache 2.0 license implements an optional chaining feature, would it be a violation of the patent then?
2. What if there's a separate implementation of a Swift compiler developed from scratch independently from Apple, does mean that it's not able to implement optional chaining without licensing the patent?
3. Here's the most interesting part: let's say there's a fork of a Swift compiler that significantly diverged and is developed independently from Apple. It seems to me that forks like these still don't violate the patent, otherwise any GitHub fork with unmerged PRs would be a violation. But let's say Google's fork no longer wishes to contribute its changes upstream, at what point does this separate development could trigger a patent violation? Does amount of divergence have any impact, let's say 90% of the codebase changes? Does the name of project matter, if someone names their fork as "Sparrow", not "Swift" is it considered a patent violation at this point if there's no license and royalties paid for optional chaining?

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

They have not patented any programming language features.

They have patented one or more ways to implement some programming language features.

Read the claims, that is what is protected. Do one step differently and you are golden.

shmerl4• 7 years ago

That doens't make it any less sick really (as applies to all software patents). But it's especially sick in the context of programming languages.

fabianhjr• 7 years ago

Just to bring clarity on what has been patented on one of the patents:

    Monad Maybe where
        Nothing  >>= _ = Nothing
        (Just x) >>= f = f x

Those three lines, implementing the Maybe Monad/bind operation, are commonplace in all functional languages. (They just called it Optional instead of Maybe and "chaining" instead of "bind"/>>=)

( https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/LanguageGuide/OptionalChai... )

EDIT:

The second one linked is a package manager — https://patents.google.com/patent/US9329841B2/en?oq=9%2c329%...

The third one is "a programing language that combines elements from C and Objective-C", sounds like a broad claim on swift — https://patents.google.com/patent/US9329844B2/

stochastic_monk• 7 years ago

Rust does this as a core idiom. I don’t think this will work.

Edit wrt edit in parent: all three of these claims apply to Rust.

haimez• 7 years ago

Or, you know, every typed functional language released in the last 30 years

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

Your example can be implemented in many different ways. This patent claims one or more ways but not all of them.

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium with instructions stored therein, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a first request to compile a first set of program instructions coded in a first high-level language, the first high-level language a C language based object-oriented programming language;

receiving a second request to compile a second set of program instructions related to the first set of program instructions, the second set of program instructions coded in a second high-level language including object-oriented elements and procedural elements, wherein the second set of program instructions includes a data type provided by the second high-level language to indicate absence of a value of any type;

compiling the first set of program instructions and the second set of program instructions using a modular compilation system including multiple front-end compilers, the first set of program instructions compiled into a first intermediate representation of the first set of program instructions and the second set of program instructions compiled into a second intermediate representation of the second set of program instructions;

linking the first and second intermediate representations; and

compiling the first and second intermediate representations using a back-end compiler that is specific to a target processor.

megaman8• 7 years ago

I've seen patents that hinged on a single line of Javascript code because it was used in a context that has never been patented before and no prior art. Not only was it submitted, but it was accepted and is a patent now.

jeremyjh3• 7 years ago

It really means very little that a patent was granted. They do not do an exhaustive search for prior art, or validation of relevance. Until it has been litigated no one really knows which patents can survive litigation.

brianberns• 7 years ago

I think they’re trying to patent the syntactic sugar that corresponds to the Maybe monad, not the concept of “bind” itself.

That said, I think there are other languages with very similar syntactic sugar (e.g. Rust), so this is still a very questionable claim.

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

One strategy behind patenting open sourced inventions is to protect the users of the open source product.

maxdesiatov10• 7 years ago

Could you please provide an example? From what specifically have any patents protected users of an open source product? I know plenty of examples when patents were used to harm the users, the most notorious one being Oracle and Java. But I don't remember a single case where users of an open source product were protected from anything with a patent owned by a big for-profit company, would be happy to know a concrete example that shows that this protection outweighs the risk of a company harming open source users.

oflannabhra2• 7 years ago

Chris Lattner has commented on the OP:

-----

Disclaimer: I'm not an apple employee and not am not lawyer, this is just my understanding of the situation having spent lots of time talking to lawyers and other experts about this:

I agree with much of the sentiment that software patents are often silly and the system is broken in many ways. This patent is a reasonable example of that (patenting syntactic sugar for monads, really?). I have no idea if there is prior art, but I wouldn't be surprised. For sake of discussion, lets assume the patent is valid.

Even if I and others don't like it, the software patent system exists. As is pointed out upthread, one of the major reasons that Swift uses the Apache 2 license is to provide more certainty for the community w.r.t. licensing and patents. An additional bonus of the Apache 2 license is that the open source project as a whole benefits from companies having and contributing their patents under the terms of the license: to say more directly, it is good for the Swift project that Apple has this patent and has contributed it to the project.

The reason for this is the Apache patent revocation clause 1, the end of bullet 3:

If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

This basically says that if someone sues someone else over Swift then they lose access to the patents contributed to the project, and are therefore subject to countersuits. This is a significant part of the protection that the Apache license provides (it is a big deterent to lawsuits in general) but it only has teeth if there are actually patents in play!

The LLVM.org community is actively working on a multi-year relicensing effort specifically to achieve these sorts of projects for LLVM as well.

-Chris

-----

Am I misreading this to mean that if Apple sues someone for infringement over the patents they have been granted, they immediately lose those patents?

vageli• 7 years ago

>If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
Am I misreading this to mean that if Apple sues someone for infringement over the patents they have been granted, they immediately lose those patents?

You in this case is likely a defined term with a narrow meaning and likely does not refer to Apple (which is probably referred to as We, Us, "the company", etc) in the document.

geofft• 7 years ago

Right, also it's for "any patent licenses granted to You under this License" - if Apple owns the patent, they have no need for Swift's license to grant them a patent license. They own it. (They are not being licensed the patents by the government, and they're certainly not being licensed them under the terms of Swift's license.)

oflannabhra2• 7 years ago

OK, so it sounds like for Apache 2.0 to have any teeth, there have to be actual patents in play.

Since Apple has received the patents, not through the Apache 2.0 license, but from the USPTO, they would not lose access to those patents should they sue for infringement over them. IAMAL, but it seems like there still might be a case to be made for Apple's use of Swift to be covered through the Apache 2.0 license.

It seems like the most logical explanation of this whole thing is that Apple wants to ensure that all users of Swift are free from litigation. To do so, they used the Apache 2.0 license to cover the code. However, the license requires there to be patents that exist, so that enforcement clauses prevent trolls from being granted a patent and then going after users of Swift. So, Apple filed for some patents that cover aspects of Swift.

maxdesiatov10• 7 years ago

The biggest question here is whether this means they lose the patents when they sue something that's not covered by Derivative Works as defined in Apache 2.0?

Looks like an implementation of a compiler not from Apple (that is, not a fork, or one that diverged too much from the original) or different languages that overlap with the patent would be infringing even if they used Apache 2.0 as well.

DannyBee3• 7 years ago

IP lawyer here. No, that is a correct interpretation.

The reason it doesn't matter is because of this:

"then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work"

As the owner of the patents, Apple doesn't need this license to have rights to those patents. They have rights otherwise.

Now, it would terminate the rights they have to other people's patents under the license. (IE if a contributor submitted something the contributor owned a patent to, apple would lose rights to that patent)

abtinf• 7 years ago

Is there a potential for a kind of legal armageddon one day if companies had a real incentive to fight each other over one of these massive Apache-2-based open source projects?

For example, with Swift, IBM is a major code contributor and runs significant portions of the project. IBM is one of the largest patent holders in the world. If Apple and IBM ever had a patent dispute involving swift, wouldn't that naturally lead to attorneys scrutinizing every other similarly licensed open source project to find an angle against each other or their partners? Wouldn't that then lead to other companies getting drawn into the dispute? And once the gates are opened, any long-simmering patent issues would be easy to add... affecting more projects and companies...

What would have happened if the Microsoft/Google/Android dispute involved Apache 2?

IANAL, but these boilerplate patent-agreements-in-open-source-licenses seem scarier than just leaving things ambiguous.

lmilcin2• 7 years ago

What you misread is that the patent is awarded to Apple, not Swift. Apple is not being released under Apache 2 license and Apple is not restricted to using the patent only for Swift. If they decide tomorrow to have another language that is not being released under Apache 2 license then there is nothing stopping them from using this feature as the patent is already theirs.

Also, has anybody noticed that every single language in existence borrows features from some other language FOR FREE? If all languages started patenting their features then we soon will be completely boggled with lawsuits or unable to invent new, better languages as they will not be able to use already established convenient features.

There are only this many simple convenient ways to denote programming language features. There is limited number of single character operators and ways you can organize them. Granting patents to single characters is just stupid.

smaddox• 7 years ago

Exactly! Apache 2 may protect users of Swift from suits for use of Swift itself, but it does not protect everyone else from suits for use of the concept elsewhere.

agumonkey• 7 years ago

patenting syntax might fall in the same box as patenting number sequences

fnord1232• 7 years ago

What you misread is that the patent is awarded to Apple, not Swift. Apple is not being released under Apache 2 license and Apple is not restricted to using the patent only for Swift. If they decide tomorrow to have another language that is not being released under Apache 2 license then there is nothing stopping them from using this feature as the patent is already theirs.

This is wrong. The license says:

3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted.

'Each Contributor heareby grants to you, ... licence ... to use ... the Work ....'

However, I am very much not a lawyer. Like Chris, I do talk to IP lawyers as part of my work.

WalterBright• 7 years ago

This is why the D programming language is Boost licensed. Many other languages are adopting D features we could have patented, but did not and will not.

kazinator4• 7 years ago

Lisps that return nil for (car nil) are implementing "optional chaining".

yes, it chains:

   (cadar nil) -> nil ;; the nil object doesn't have a "car"

   (cadar '((b c))) -> c

   ;; i.e.
   (car (cdr (car '((b c))))) -> c

This is exactly like, in Swift-like syntax, doing '((b c)).car?.cdr?.car? where the ? indicates "don't blow up if it's nil", except the "don't blow up" is built into car and cdr.

This freedom was introduced in InterLisp, quite a few years before Jobs and Wozniak got together in a garage to make the Apple I.

If you want prior art, there it is.

Another prior art, related to this, is the Null Object Design Pattern, which is very similar.

In Common Lisp, this pattern (like many others) disappears because `nil` is the element of a `null` class, to which we can specialize methods. So in other words, we can make

If we have a method called position that normally returns the position of an object, if we specialize the method to the null class we can make (position nil) do something.

In Java-like OOP languages we would have a specific NullWhatever class that implements the same Whatever abstract interface/base as an ActualWhatever. Thus we then have an optional Whatever because code that takes a Whatever can take a NullWhatever or an ActualWhatever.

Yet another prior art is the use of sentinel objects instead of null pointers: for instance doubly-linked lists that have a special node, not considered part of the list, that is the predecessor of the first, and successor of the last. Then the code operating on lists neither blows up with a null access, nor does it have to check for nulls. Statements like node->prev->next = node always work.

"The single event that had the most influence on the creation of the League [for Programming Freedom] was Apple's lawsuits against Microsoft about supposed copyrights violations of the look and feel of the Macintosh in the development of Windows."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Programming_Freedom

pnw_hazor19• 7 years ago

You are talking about language features.

The patent protects how a compiler implements some features in a multi-target environment. Nothing to do with optional chaining.

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

I'm having a hard time getting a clear picture what this actually entails. I am in violation if I reimplement Swift without forking the project (i.e. a "clean room reimplementation")? If I'm designing my own language, am I no longer allowed to include optional chaining? If so, I'm pretty disappointed with this direction, since it runs counter to the entire point of accessible programming languages, including many of the ideas that Swift itself uses. Imagine if there were patents on C: software development would be far further behind than it is today, because nobody would be able to make a compiler for it or reuse its syntax or features in any new programming languages. I'm not seeing any benefits aside from a vague "it protects Swift users from patent trolls", but I'm not sure I understand how this argument works.

maxdesiatov10• 7 years ago

Exactly this, thank you for summarizing this so well! I've tried to clarify this exact point at Swift Forums, but I haven't seen even a clarifying answer from anyone in the core team on this point. Everyone says "it protects Swift", but looks like this protection comes at a cost of the overall ecosystem.

maxdesiatov10• 7 years ago

And also, "it protects Swift" in their context always means "it protects Apple's Swift" unfortunately

dom96• 7 years ago

And this is one very real reason to avoid languages owned by huge companies like Google's Go and Apple's Swift. They can and will do evil things, instead of supporting them please consider supporting smaller languages which are often just as good or better as Swift/Go.

Dotnaught• 7 years ago

Does this have any implications for Google's effort to integrate Swift into Fuchsia?

norswap2• 7 years ago

I'm left dreaming of a future when we have to pirate programming languages.

norswap2• 7 years ago

We're building tanks but we promiiiiise we'll only ever use them for defense!

hyperpallium2• 7 years ago

I'm not using Swift, so I don't get rights conferred by the Apache license.

I make a language with "Apple's" claimed invention. (EDITED)

Apple sues me.

favorited• 7 years ago

No. Did you look at the patent? "Optional chaining" is not one of the patent's claims.

The patent is about building a compiler out of 2 modular front-ends – each taking an input language (one being an OO language based on C), generating the appropriate IR, and handing the IR to a backend.

It goes on to specify that one of the integrated frontends does more compile-time safety checking, calling out bounds-checking and optionals, and the other doesn't (because it is specifically based on C).

hyperpallium2• 7 years ago

No, I went by the posted link. It does't alter my point.

niutech2• 7 years ago

OMG, the U.S. patent system is so crazy and people are so scared of being sued for any dumb reason. Why don't you change it? I am glad that I live in the E.U., where the situation is saner.

cannabis_sam• 7 years ago

Patents are so literally rent-seeking that I cannot fathom why people support them.

Apple is patenting Swift features

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