Nothing to see here, etc
Analysis Apple has, over the past few years, quietly and successfully patented, in the US at least, various aspects of Swift.
That’s the programming language the iPhone-slinging biz open sourced in 2015 under the Apache 2.0 license with a Runtime Library Exception.
In the past day or so, developers working with the language have highlighted on Swift discussion forum Cupertino’s intellectual property land-grab, expressing concern that the patents – which are assigned to Apple rather than the Swift project – may expose those writing Swift applications to future legal jeopardy.
Here are two of the patents in question: 9,952,841 and 9,329,844 .
Setting aside the problems with software patents – many developers, among others, believe they should not exist – and ignoring the fact that many of the features mentioned in Apple’s Swift patents (eg: options chaining) can be found in other programming languages, there’s no concrete cause for alarm.
The Apache 2.0 license grants users the right to use patent-encumbered code from any contributor, including Apple; these rights terminate upon attempting to bring a patent infringement claim against any entity over a Swift project. Better still, Apple has not sued anyone for violating Swift patents, so far as The Register is aware.
At the same time, Google software engineering director and open source lawyer Daniel Berlin observed in a Hacker News discussion, the patent claims Apple has made are ” worrying .
