At 2:55 PM +0100 4/26/02, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
> > Where does Apple hold these patents?
>From the docs that accompany the latest stable release, I
>understand USA and Japan, but that might not be accurate -- the
>FreeType document is not certain about this and it is dated 1999.
Here is a VERY recent message from David Turner (FreeType
lead) about the TrueType patents and Apple...
At 2:15 PM +0200 4/15/02, David Turner wrote:
>Tony Mobily a �crit :
>>
>> Hi David,
>>
> > did you check when the patents:
>>
>> Patent #1 : US5155805: Method and apparatus for moving control points in
>> displaying digital typeface on raster output devices
>>
>> Filed on May, 8 1989
>>
>> Patent #2 : US5159668: Method and apparatus for manipulating outlines in
>> improving digital typeface on raster output devices
>>
>> Filed on May, 8 1989 too. Actually, the two patents were filed and granted
>> concurrently.
>>
>> Patent #3 : US5325479: Method and apparatus for moving control points in
>> displaying digital typeface on raster output devices
>>
>> Filed on May 28, 1992
>>
>> ...will expire?
>> It's going to be 10 years soon, and...
>>
>
>Add 20 years to the filing date. This means that patents #1 and #2 will
>expire on May, 8, 2009 (in about 7 years from today)
>
>I ahve finely analyzed the patent and I'd like to remark the following:
>
> Patent #1 protects the _exact_ computation performed by a MIRP instruction.
> (basically a dot-product in 2D space, yekk..)
>
> Patent #3 protects _approximations_ of this computation, since these might
> generate an outline that is slightly different, but still produce correct
> bitmaps !! FreeType doesn't infringe on it, by the way..
>
>Seems Apple really wanted to "lock" the use of TrueType :-)
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>- David Turner
--
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Leonard Rosenthol <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<http://www.lazerware.com>
