Also, this might be tangentially related to Fractan. Any Mathematician there? if there's some relation, the patent might be void/null.
For many years I had to install a linux distro and then mess around with freetype because there was a valid patent on subpixel hinting that was valid in the US and irrelevant in Europe but because the distro's I used at the time where US based I got caught in the cross fire.
Given the huge imbalance between US tech and Europe Tech (and rest of the world really) in software they sneeze, we get flu.
That only stopped been a problem when the patents expired[1].
mv4•41m ago