ARN

Lawsuit alleges Palm Pre violates copyright

The Palm Pre is using PDF technology without proper licensing, Artifex alleges

Artifex Software is suing Palm over the PDF (Portable Document Format) viewer in Palm's Pre smartphone, it said on Thursday.

Artifex alleges that Palm has copied Artifex's PDF rendering engine, called muPDF, and integrated it into the Palm Pre's PDF viewer application without the proper licensing conditions.

Artifex requires that an entire application must be licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) if muPDF is part of the application.

If the software is not licensed under the GNU GPL, then Artifex requires a commercial license in order to use muPDF, according to the company's licensing terms.

Artifex alleges that Palm has done neither and has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Palm's documentation for the Pre includes a mention of muPDF, which it says has been licensed under the GNU GPL.

Palm Europe did not reply to questions about the lawsuit. The Pre was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and went on sale in the U.S in June.

Come socialise with us! Facebook | LinkedIn

More about: Consumer Electronics, NU, Palm
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Artifex, copyright, gpl, GPL violation, lawsuits, legal, Palm, Palm Pre, pdf
ARN Directory | Distributors relevant to this article
Bluechip Infotech
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/aca-pacific/398_abbyy-finereader-11-intelligent-ocr-software-f
ACA Pacific

ABBYY FineReader 11 - Intelligent OCR software for document conversion.

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.