Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
Posted Jan 11, 2006 16:59 UTC (Wed) by sdenlinger (subscriber, #24239)In reply to: Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com) by proski
Parent article: Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
But the U.S. Patent Office has just ruled that Microsoft's claim to the patent on FAT is indeed valid. I am not an attorney, but what stronger case could Microsoft hope to wait for before deciding to take someone to court for violating its patent?
Posted Jan 11, 2006 18:06 UTC (Wed)
by proski (subscriber, #104)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Jan 11, 2006 18:30 UTC (Wed)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Jan 12, 2006 0:38 UTC (Thu)
by wookey (guest, #5501)
[Link] (2 responses)
It's only long filename extensions we need to worry about (and in fact their mappings back to unique 8.3 names).
It does mean that the Linux VFAT implmentation is presumably infringing (which is of course a bloody stupid state of affairs). We wrote it all ourselves for the purpose of interoperability. In a reasonable world that could never be illegal.
Posted Jan 12, 2006 7:44 UTC (Thu)
by beejaybee (guest, #1581)
[Link] (1 responses)
No. Most top-end cameras now support FAT32 as well. Essentially this support is required to cope with flash cards bigger than 2GB - given that professionals and advanced amateurs almost invariably store images in either RAW or TIFF format, 2 GBytes is equivalent in storage to only about one roll of 35mm film.
Posted Jan 13, 2006 9:34 UTC (Fri)
by Ross (guest, #4065)
[Link]
Targeting Linux developers would make it a weak case. It would be hard to prove that anyone of them profits from the use of the patented technology. IANAL
Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
Isn't RedHat selling operating systems that can read pictures from a digital camera? Isn't RedHat paying Linux kernel developers? Isn't it a strong enough case?
Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
Yes, but they don't use the patents, which all refer to long filenames. Digital cameras (SFAIK) all use original FAT (well, the 16-bit version) with 8.3 names.Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
"Digital cameras (SFAIK) all use original FAT (well, the 16-bit version) with 8.3 names."Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)
But it's still possible to use 8.3 filenames on FAT32, right? Or do the patents cover both the long filename extensions and the larger filesystem extensions? It seems like the latter are completely obvious given the move from FAT12 to FAT16.Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)