licensing intellectual-property
Do app makers need to pay royalties if their software generates PDFs?
<p>I'm building a (for-pay) web/mobile app that will generate PDF reports for customers. Do I need to pay someone a royalty? Who? How much and what are the terms?</p>

<p>Surprisingly, the best info I was able to find was from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format" rel="nofollow">PDF wikipedia page</a> where it simply lists PDF as an "Open" format. But no mention of royalties, etc.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adobe grants every individual and organization in the
  world the royalty-free right, under all Essential Claims that Adobe
  owns, to make, have made, use, sell, import and distribute Compliant
  Implementations. If a licensee brings (or participates directly or
  indirectly in the bringing of) a lawsuit or similar action against any
  other party claiming that a Compliant Implementation infringes an
  Essential Claim, Adobe may revoke the rights granted above to such
  licensee. Upon such revocation, such rights will be deemed to have
  never been granted.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="https://www.adobe.com/pdf/pdfs/ISO32000-1PublicPatentLicense.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.adobe.com/pdf/pdfs/ISO32000-1PublicPatentLicense.pdf</a></p>
