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Re: [ft-devel] Apple TT hinting patents


From: Antoine Leca
Subject: Re: [ft-devel] Apple TT hinting patents
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 14:18:50 +0200

Bevan, David wrote:
> We recently received the following advice concerning these patents:
>
> "[During May] the patents expired in the UK and most of the world.

I am aware of the particular case of the US patents (files before 1996 so
grant-date+17 as top date.) AFAIK, the other patents worldwide do not have
similar rules, so protection is uniformly 20 years (assuming the fees are
paid.)

However, I am not a lawyer, and I do not understand which of the filing date
or the anteriority/priority date applies when computing the duration of
protection. Someone has (semi-) authoritative information about that?

If we consider the UK patent GB2232861, according to
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent/p-os/p-find/p-find-number.htm, with the
above reference as Publication Number, it was filed on 27.04.1990, but
"priority [is] claimed [on] 08.05.1989 in United States of America" (this
refers the US5155805 patent.)

More surprinsing is that it seems from the web page referenced above that
Apple paid the fees for one more year on 22.04.2009...

And this page says as a conclusion "Status                 PATENT IN FORCE"
(remember: it's the British IP Office: they might aim at collecting as much
money as they can, but I would be surprised if they knowingly publish a page
with a wrong status; and if the web server is brocken in such a way, I'd
surprised too.)


Antoine





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