17 messages in org.apache.legal-discussRE: CMaps for PDF CJK Fonts (LEGAL-36)| From | Sent On | Attachments |
|---|---|---|
| Henri Yandell | Oct 5, 2008 11:26 pm | |
| Geir Magnusson Jr. | Oct 6, 2008 2:33 am | |
| Henri Yandell | Oct 6, 2008 1:27 pm | |
| Jukka Zitting | Oct 6, 2008 2:22 pm | |
| Lawrence Rosen | Oct 6, 2008 3:54 pm | |
| Geir Magnusson Jr. | Oct 6, 2008 8:43 pm | |
| Henri Yandell | Oct 6, 2008 9:37 pm | |
| Henri Yandell | Oct 6, 2008 9:44 pm | |
| William A. Rowe, Jr. | Oct 7, 2008 12:13 am | |
| Jukka Zitting | Oct 7, 2008 12:46 am | |
| Lawrence Rosen | Oct 7, 2008 10:53 am | |
| Jukka Zitting | Oct 10, 2008 5:07 pm | |
| Lawrence Rosen | Oct 10, 2008 5:42 pm | |
| Henri Yandell | Oct 12, 2008 5:26 pm | |
| Jukka Zitting | Oct 13, 2008 2:55 am | |
| Jukka Zitting | Nov 27, 2008 3:21 pm | |
| Jukka Zitting | Dec 3, 2008 2:16 pm |
| Subject: | RE: CMaps for PDF CJK Fonts (LEGAL-36) | |
|---|---|---|
| From: | Lawrence Rosen (lro...@rosenlaw.com) | |
| Date: | Oct 6, 2008 3:54:22 pm | |
| List: | org.apache.legal-discuss | |
Geir Magnusson asked:
What about the very prominent "Patents Pending"?
What about it? Now that you have read that statement you know exactly as much as I do about some hypothetical patents by some anonymous inventor. That is: Nothing at all. The "Patents Pending" statement has about as much utility for ASF's analysis of patent risk as no statement at all.
It is, in patent law, the equivalent of "I have a secret that I won't tell." Legally, it doesn't have much more value than that. It is, however, fair warning that a patent has actually been applied for that reads on the product so marked, and it is improper to mark something as "Patents Pending" when patents are in fact not pending. If a patent later issues that reads on your product, you suddenly become an infringer. But those patents may never issue and they may not actually read on your product or any other.
So if, a few years from now, you get a cease-and-desist letter announcing an actual patent, consider yourself to have been warned by "Patents Pending." But not effectively warned. ("Remember that secret I wouldn't tell you. Here's my secret now, and here's my invoice for infringement.")
/Larry
-----Original Message----- From: Jukka Zitting [mailto:jukk...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 2:23 PM To: lega...@apache.org Subject: Re: CMaps for PDF CJK Fonts (LEGAL-36)
Hi,
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Geir Magnusson Jr. <ge...@pobox.com> wrote:
What about the very prominent "Patents Pending"?
I could find a few Adobe patents regarding CJK fonts, see [1]. They don't seem to be directly related to the way PDFBox is using the files, but I'm not too much of a PDFBox expert (I'm just a mentor there) to say for sure.
More generally, there are probably a whole load of patents that cover things implemented in a project like PDFBox. Adobe has a number of such patents, but is explicitly licensing them for use in software like PDFBox, see [2] (text included at the end of this message). I have no way of knowing whether this patent grant covers all the patents "needed" by PDFBox.
Do we have some guidelines or examples on how such patent issues should be documented in an Apache project?
[1] http://www.google.com/patents?q=adobe+cjk [2] http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/support/topic_legal_notices.htm l
BR,
Jukka Zitting
----
Adobe Patent Clarification Notice:
Reading and writing PDF files
Adobe has a number of patents covering technology that is disclosed in the Portable Document Format (PDF) Specification, version 1.3 and later, as documented in PDF Reference and associated Technical Notes (the "Specification"). Adobe desires to promote the use of PDF for information interchange among diverse products and applications. Accordingly, the following patents are licensed on a royalty-free, nonexclusive basis for the term of each patent and for the sole purpose of developing software that produces, consumes, and interprets PDF files that are compliant with the Specification:
U.S. Patent Numbers:
5,634,064 5,737,599 5,781,785 5,819,301 6,028,583 6,289,364 6,421,460
In addition, the following patent is licensed on a royalty-free, nonexclusive basis for its term and for the sole purpose of developing software that produces PDF files that are compliant with the Specification (specifically excluding, however, software that consumes and/or interprets PDF files):
U.S. Patent Number:
5,860,074
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--------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: Discussions on this list are informational and educational only. Statements made on this list are not privileged, do not constitute legal advice, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and policies of the ASF. See <http://www.apache.org/licenses/> for official ASF policies and documents.