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> It seems like you're assuming that there's a decent chance that FB doesn't actually hold any patents on React. That's very likely actually. Patents are publ

by Lazare 9y ago

> It seems like you're assuming that there's a decent chance that FB doesn't actually hold any patents on React. That's very likely actually. Patents are public; people have searched around for obvious concepts and phrases involving the virtual dom, synthetic events, etc., and nothing has been found. (There's also nothing novel in what React does, so you'd kind of hope there'd be no patents.) > This seems unlikely Why do you think Facebook having patents on React is likely? (Come to that, why is it any more likely than them having patents on the tech behind, say, Angular?) > and is contradicted by what the author wrote (indicating that popular React alternatives may also infringe FB patents) IF a patent on, say, the virtual DOM exists, then Preact, Vue, etc., will all violate it. But it seems fairly clear that no such patent exists. So the author is quite right; popular React alternatives almost certainly use just as many of Facebook's patents as React does...it's just the number is probably "zero".

Vinnl 9y ago
> people have searched around for obvious concepts and phrases involving the virtual dom, synthetic events, etc., and nothing has been found. Someone shared this one with me recently: https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242 https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242 That said, if you're using React, I don't think you should be suing Facebook for using your patents - after all, you're using theirs. If you do want to do that, then by all means, skip React.
- daenney 9y ago
  > That said, if you're using React, I don't think you should be suing Facebook for using your patents - after all, you're using theirs. If you do want to do that, then by all means, skip React. So if they infringe on your patents you shouldn't sue them because they let you use some of their code? Note that this covers any patent (design patents too and not just software patents) and for any reason you sue them. That's not how this is supposed to work, and precisely what's wrong with the license. The grant shouldn't be revoked if Facebook is infringing on your works. It encourages you to not litigate against them if they're in the wrong simply because you're using one of their open source components. The Apache 2 license is much better worded in this area: > 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. That Apache 2 approach is entirely fair, the grant gets terimnated if you sue for patent infringement, and only that. If that's all that Facebook wanted to protect against, as the author alledges, they could've used the Apache 2 license just fine. They didn't because they're trying to leverage their patents much further.
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    > So if they infringe on your patents you shouldn't sue them because they let you use some of their code? No, if it's really just "some code" to you, then you should simply not use it if you're really afraid that Facebook is infringing on your patents and that you will gain harm from that. However, if: - you're profiting a lot from either React, or other Facebook patents - you're not afraid that Facebook is infringing on your patents, or - Facebook infringing on your patents doesn't really harm you, just like you using Facebook's React patents doesn't really harm Facebook ...then you can just use React. And I believe one of the above holds for almost every React user. And I'm afraid I don't really care how patents are "supposed" to work - we've known for a long time already they don't work like they're supposed to....
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - kazagistar 9y ago
      Software patents are broken, but other patents are still doing some amount of good. Facebook is leveraging software patents to get a potential advantage in all patent cases.
    - daenney 9y ago
      > - Facebook infringing on your patents doesn't really harm you, just like you using Facebook's React patents doesn't really harm Facebook Eh, what? There's a very big difference between someone infringing on a patent, which does harm no matter if you care to enforce it or not (because it sends a signal to others that it's fine to infringe on your patents, if you don't care about them make them public domain instead), and an open source project including a patent grant so you don't have to worry about any patents that might govern that code. The two situations are not identical and can't just be compared like that. > And I'm afraid I don't really care how patents are "supposed" to work - we've known for a long time already they don't work like they're supposed to.... Ah yes of course! The system is broken anyways so lets just not give a fuck about it being further abused. Just do as you please. Sound argument.
lmeyerov 9y ago
We (the Flapjax team) open sourced a vdom for reactive web programming / FRP in 2005-2006, including formal publications in 2007-2009, so precedent will be interesting. We're doing next-next-gen of that stuff at Graphistry (Rx, Falcor, GoAI, ...), so fun times if lawyers come in.
- beagle3 9y ago
  Fun? Hope you guys have a $500,000 or so stashed aside for this fun party. That's likely what you need to prevail even when the facts are on your side.
  - fasquoika 9y ago
    The EFF could get involved if it made sense
  - lmeyerov 9y ago
    My statement is that React builds on > 10 years of ideas from open web frp frameworks and > 20 years of reactive frameworks in general. Companies wanting to bust patents here would certainly get support from early creators like us. Certain ones like Google have been know to do that sort of thing, and I wouldn't hesitate to help them if they identified anything.
- j_s 9y ago
  http://www.flapjax-lang.org/ http://www.flapjax-lang.org/ ?
e9 9y ago
what about this one? It was literally just published: "Automatic overdraw reduction before rendering" https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+user+interface+react+virtual+dom&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWo8DVvZzWAhWojlQKHXRDAkgQ6AEIPzAD https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+use...
- pavlov 9y ago
  That's an ugly React-related patent application for sure. I hope this application doesn't go anywhere, as there would seem to be a lot of prior art. For example, the Cocoa API in macOS implements the method of Claim 1 pretty much to the letter: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsview/1483772-getrectsbeingdrawn?language=objc https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsview/1483... This API was introduced in OS X 10.3, so that would be 14 years ago.
  - underwater 9y ago
    React doesn't do layout so it can't do occlusion.
    - pavlov 9y ago
      The patent description explicitly states it's about React: "Although many embodiments are described herein in the context of React, embodiments are not limited to React or to rendering only updated views as determined by React libraries."
- dkersten 9y ago
  I know that patent claims are typically much more specific than what the abstract suggests, and I only gave the claims a cursory read, but... surely there is prior art for this? I mean, I'm sure many non-web GUI systems avoid overdraw and at the very least, game rendering engines do, right? At least, I was under the illusion that overdraw was a big deal that at least shader-heavy renderers or old-school 80's/90's tile based renderers?

by Lazare 9y ago

Vinnl 9y ago

> people have searched around for obvious concepts and phrases involving the virtual dom, synthetic events, etc., and nothing has been found. Someone shared this one with me recently: https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242 https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242 That said, if you're using React, I don't think you should be suing Facebook for using your patents - after all, you're using theirs. If you do want to do that, then by all means, skip React.

daenney 9y ago
> That said, if you're using React, I don't think you should be suing Facebook for using your patents - after all, you're using theirs. If you do want to do that, then by all means, skip React. So if they infringe on your patents you shouldn't sue them because they let you use some of their code? Note that this covers any patent (design patents too and not just software patents) and for any reason you sue them. That's not how this is supposed to work, and precisely what's wrong with the license. The grant shouldn't be revoked if Facebook is infringing on your works. It encourages you to not litigate against them if they're in the wrong simply because you're using one of their open source components. The Apache 2 license is much better worded in this area: > 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. That Apache 2 approach is entirely fair, the grant gets terimnated if you sue for patent infringement, and only that. If that's all that Facebook wanted to protect against, as the author alledges, they could've used the Apache 2 license just fine. They didn't because they're trying to leverage their patents much further.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  > So if they infringe on your patents you shouldn't sue them because they let you use some of their code? No, if it's really just "some code" to you, then you should simply not use it if you're really afraid that Facebook is infringing on your patents and that you will gain harm from that. However, if: - you're profiting a lot from either React, or other Facebook patents - you're not afraid that Facebook is infringing on your patents, or - Facebook infringing on your patents doesn't really harm you, just like you using Facebook's React patents doesn't really harm Facebook ...then you can just use React. And I believe one of the above holds for almost every React user. And I'm afraid I don't really care how patents are "supposed" to work - we've known for a long time already they don't work like they're supposed to....
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kazagistar 9y ago
    Software patents are broken, but other patents are still doing some amount of good. Facebook is leveraging software patents to get a potential advantage in all patent cases.
  - daenney 9y ago
    > - Facebook infringing on your patents doesn't really harm you, just like you using Facebook's React patents doesn't really harm Facebook Eh, what? There's a very big difference between someone infringing on a patent, which does harm no matter if you care to enforce it or not (because it sends a signal to others that it's fine to infringe on your patents, if you don't care about them make them public domain instead), and an open source project including a patent grant so you don't have to worry about any patents that might govern that code. The two situations are not identical and can't just be compared like that. > And I'm afraid I don't really care how patents are "supposed" to work - we've known for a long time already they don't work like they're supposed to.... Ah yes of course! The system is broken anyways so lets just not give a fuck about it being further abused. Just do as you please. Sound argument.

lmeyerov 9y ago

We (the Flapjax team) open sourced a vdom for reactive web programming / FRP in 2005-2006, including formal publications in 2007-2009, so precedent will be interesting. We're doing next-next-gen of that stuff at Graphistry (Rx, Falcor, GoAI, ...), so fun times if lawyers come in.

beagle3 9y ago
Fun? Hope you guys have a $500,000 or so stashed aside for this fun party. That's likely what you need to prevail even when the facts are on your side.
- fasquoika 9y ago
  The EFF could get involved if it made sense
- lmeyerov 9y ago
  My statement is that React builds on > 10 years of ideas from open web frp frameworks and > 20 years of reactive frameworks in general. Companies wanting to bust patents here would certainly get support from early creators like us. Certain ones like Google have been know to do that sort of thing, and I wouldn't hesitate to help them if they identified anything.
j_s 9y ago
http://www.flapjax-lang.org/ http://www.flapjax-lang.org/ ?

e9 9y ago

what about this one? It was literally just published: "Automatic overdraw reduction before rendering" https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+user+interface+react+virtual+dom&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWo8DVvZzWAhWojlQKHXRDAkgQ6AEIPzAD https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+use...

pavlov 9y ago
That's an ugly React-related patent application for sure. I hope this application doesn't go anywhere, as there would seem to be a lot of prior art. For example, the Cocoa API in macOS implements the method of Claim 1 pretty much to the letter: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsview/1483772-getrectsbeingdrawn?language=objc https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsview/1483... This API was introduced in OS X 10.3, so that would be 14 years ago.
- underwater 9y ago
  React doesn't do layout so it can't do occlusion.
  - pavlov 9y ago
    The patent description explicitly states it's about React: "Although many embodiments are described herein in the context of React, embodiments are not limited to React or to rendering only updated views as determined by React libraries."
dkersten 9y ago
I know that patent claims are typically much more specific than what the abstract suggests, and I only gave the claims a cursory read, but... surely there is prior art for this? I mean, I'm sure many non-web GUI systems avoid overdraw and at the very least, game rendering engines do, right? At least, I was under the illusion that overdraw was a big deal that at least shader-heavy renderers or old-school 80's/90's tile based renderers?