I was planning to use them in a web app. I wonder where that leaves ... everybody? Will Tufte have to license his own invention for a future book or app? It wo

I was planning to use them in a web app. I wonder where that leaves ... everybody? Will Tufte have to license his own invention for a future book or app? It would be odd, considering that Microsoft names Tufte as the inventor on the posted page. "For Excel 2010 we’ve implemented sparklines, “intense, simple, word-sized graphics”, as their inventor Edward Tufte describes them in his book Beautiful Evidence. "