Apple Inc.

Apple inc. has software patents and has used them aggressively (such as against HTC Corporation, in 2010).

LLVM

There are no known granted patents, owned by Apple, which would be needed for someone to make a clone of LLVM.

Apple is a major contributor to the LLVM compiler. The LLVM software is free software, distributed under a standard BSD licence, which happens to give no patent protection to recipients. It is no different in this regard than any other BSD-licensed body of code.

Can you help? LLVM's contributor policy[1] asks contributors to give free access to necessary patents. Has Apple done this? Reminder: IF Apple is found to have been granted patents on LLVM ideas, we should check if those ideas are implemented in LLVM's repository (covered by LLVM's patent policy) or if they're for non-contributed extensions.

Apple has applied for a patent on "Converting javascript into a device-independent representation" which claims:

1. A method for processing computer code, comprising: storing a device-independent intermediate representation of a source code; and in the event an indication is received that the source code has changed, using the changed source code to generate and store a new intermediate representation of the changed source code.
[...]
8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the intermediate representation comprises LLVM intermediate representation (IR), LLVM byte code or other byte code, or another appropriate intermediate representation.

"LLVM IR" is also mentioned in the application's "Detailed description" but only in passing, and solely as an example—one of potentially many—of "intermediate representations" which could be used here. The specific mention, at [0016] in the application, reads "Converting code written in an interpreted language, such as JavaScript, into an intermediate representation, such as LLVM intermediate representation or another storable intermediate representation, is disclosed." There's nothing to support the notion that this patent related specifically to LLVM in general, or even to LLVM IR in particular, in any way. LLVM IR is obviously mentioned simply as one example that could be given.

A few suggestions, pretty much randomly selected, for so-called prior art which might actually relate to the LVM compiler as a whole, if Apple should ever actually attempt to patent it—something which seems completely incomprehensible given that there is, in fact, no apparent evidence to support such an idea—and if such an application were unaccountably approved, might possibly include [2], [3], [4], and the "UCSD p-System".

This is entirely speculative, however, in the actual absence of such a patent. You can't know what's "prior art" unless you have some concrete and specific "art" that the "prior art" is supposed to be prior to. The particular "prior art" cited here appear to have no relevance at all to the patent application being discussed in this section, so their inclusion here essentially amounts to a random waste of otherwise perfectly good pixels. We'll do it anyway, what the hell.

Patents using "LLVM" but referring to something else

Some of Apple's patents use the abbreviation "LLVM" to refer to other things, such as "low-level virtual memory", as used in a patent US 6263421, titled Virtual memory system that is portable between different CPU types. The easily bewildered and those already antagonistic to Apple may unwittingly make the gross error of assuming that this particular patent has something, anything, to do with the LLVM compiler, but that is most certainly not the case. It is mentioned here only as a possible remedy to anyone who might be prone to this sort of appalling credulity.

Litigation

(Note: be careful to add only disputes about software patents, not hardware patents.)

Court cases and lawsuits involving Apple...

By Apple

• Apple v. HTC (2010, USA) - widely publicised litigation over software patents

...plus indirectly by selling patents to Digitude Innovations.

Against Apple

• Elan Microelectronics v. Apple (2010, USA)
• Nokia v. Apple (2010, USA)
• Mirror Worlds v. Apple (2008, USA)
• Acacia Research Corp. v. Apple (2007, USA)
• Motorola v. Apple (2010, USA)
• Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc. v. Apple (2010, USA)

Related pages on ESP Wiki

• Apple Dock
• HTML5 and video patents
• Software progress happens without patents#Is_Apple_an_example?
• Nortel and Rockstar Bidco

External links

News selection

(newest first)

• Apple Made A Deal With The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll), 9 Dec 2011, Techcrunch
• Apple using patents to undermine open standards again, 9 Dec 2011, Haavard Opera blog
• Apple granted patent on webpage scrolling behaviors, media granted patent on crazy, 22 June 2011, thisismynext.com
• Apple Sued Over Touchpad Technology at ITC, 26 Apr 2010, LegalTimes blog (see also US ITC)
• Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal, 9 Mar 2010, by Johnathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems about patent threats from Apple and Microsoft
• Apple files litigation against HTC for violation of 20 patents, 2 Mar 2010, TechCrunch
• Apple Seeks Patent On Operating System Advertising, 23 Oct 2009, Slashdot
• Apple patent claim threatens to block or delay W3C specification, 7 Apr 2009, Haavard Opera blog
• Apple claims to own patents on the HTML5 canvas tag, Mar 2007 - but they later solved this problem by agreeing to license those patent(s) under the w3c's royalty-free terms.
• Apple's 200 patents on the iPhone, 16 Jan 2007, unwiredview - some are hardware patents, some are software patents