Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) [LWN.net]

Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register)

Posted Dec 8, 2003 18:51 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
In reply to: Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) by vblum
Parent article: Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register)

First, the "FAT patent" covers the encoding of long filenames, not FAT itself.

Just because someone has a patent does not mean that the patent is valid. In fact, when a patent fight reaches court, it is quite common for the patent to be overturned.

The USPTO, I've read, give patent examiners an average of 25 hours to do the entire review for a patent, which is why so many questionable patents are granted.

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actual patents

Posted Dec 8, 2003 19:04 UTC (Mon) by vblum (subscriber, #1151) [Link]

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

lists four patents regarding FAT (plus unspecified further ones). Do all these cover file name encoding?

Yes, patents may be overturned. But the amount of legal FUD that can be launched with all this is potentially huge. And, some patents may actually be enforceable.

Anyway, I was curious whether the actual patents cover the implementation in the Linux kernel. Is that so?

actual patents

Posted Dec 8, 2003 19:40 UTC (Mon) by drathos (guest, #6454) [Link]

I just looked up all four on the USPTO site. The earliest of them is dated Nov 26, 1996 (filed April 4, 1995) and, based on the summaries, they all relate to maintaining both long and short filenames in the filesystem.