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FYI this patent was published recently: "Automatic overdraw reduction before rendering" https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+user+interface+

by e9 9y ago

FYI this patent was published recently: "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...

Lazare 9y ago
Fascinating. Well, good to know, and that does change thing a bit. So, better make sure nothing you use has any form of smart overdraw reduction, dom diffing, etc., before you pick a patent fight with Facebook. Of course, a cursory glance suggests every modern frontend UI library will violate that patent, so I still don't see a reason to avoid React; Vue, Angular, and recent versions of Ember are all just as much in violation. Guess we're back to static HTML and PHP. :) (More seriously, hopefully it won't go anywhere; it's pretty clearly got a ton of prior art. But given how broken the patent system is, who knows?)
- mickronome 9y ago
  Yeah, the claims appears to be the usual ”-We do the desktop thing, but it's actually completely a different thing because we implement it in a browser, and it's natural confines". However, imho one of the major problems with software related patents is allowing an extremely ambiguous language in a field where exact language is the native form of expression. It simultaneously makes it excessively expensive to challenge a patent, and almost impossible to divine if a particular implementation is covered. There is code I've written that a client wanted to patent, and knowing the nature of the code, it's not a snowball's chance in hell I would recognise that (my own) algorithm if it was written in patentese, at least without spending days on it. I don't even want to think about how many hours of legal fees it would cost to challenge even such a minor algorithm.

by e9 9y ago

Lazare 9y ago

Fascinating. Well, good to know, and that does change thing a bit. So, better make sure nothing you use has any form of smart overdraw reduction, dom diffing, etc., before you pick a patent fight with Facebook. Of course, a cursory glance suggests every modern frontend UI library will violate that patent, so I still don't see a reason to avoid React; Vue, Angular, and recent versions of Ember are all just as much in violation. Guess we're back to static HTML and PHP. :) (More seriously, hopefully it won't go anywhere; it's pretty clearly got a ton of prior art. But given how broken the patent system is, who knows?)

mickronome 9y ago
Yeah, the claims appears to be the usual ”-We do the desktop thing, but it's actually completely a different thing because we implement it in a browser, and it's natural confines". However, imho one of the major problems with software related patents is allowing an extremely ambiguous language in a field where exact language is the native form of expression. It simultaneously makes it excessively expensive to challenge a patent, and almost impossible to divine if a particular implementation is covered. There is code I've written that a client wanted to patent, and knowing the nature of the code, it's not a snowball's chance in hell I would recognise that (my own) algorithm if it was written in patentese, at least without spending days on it. I don't even want to think about how many hours of legal fees it would cost to challenge even such a minor algorithm.