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PUBPAT Challenges Microsoft's FAT Patent
An anonymous reader writes "The Public Patent Foundation filed a formal request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office today to revoke Microsoft Corporation's patent on the FAT File System, touted by Microsoft as being 'the ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers, and, since the advent of inexpensive, removable flash memory, also between digital devices.' In its filing, PUBPAT submitted previously unseen prior art showing the patent, which issued in November 1996 and is not otherwise due to expire until 2013, was obvious and, as such, should have never been granted."
... somebody did this. FAT's been around and is now somewhat of a standard. Maybe some of MS's other patents can be challenged as well.
I for one am sick of this patenting frenzy. What will they do when there is nothing left to patent? ...oh, hold on, i know - they'll start suing.
If you're a lawyer-type interested in technology, send them an email.
They have several interesting projects on patent re-examination, commentary on the patent process, etc.
until now, but I love what I see as the idea behind the work they are doing: Fighting unwarranted, unfounded and/or improperly sworn/filed patents
Go get 'em!
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Microsoft has annouced it's purchase of United States Patent and Trademark Office.....SCO has been issued a patent for unix....the RIAA has been issued a patent for sound .....the MPAA has been issued a patent for light.....
But doesn't this just validate that the patent system albeit a little broken generally works.
Surely everyone has to realise that patent officers can't be geniuses in their respective fields, because the genuieses are off inventing and discovering things.
Hence the onus should be on making it easy to revoke granted patents the minute prior art is discovered. Otherwise it could take patent officers years to validate each patent.
Funtage Factor: Purple
This only weakens the concept of intellectual property. Why invent if you're just going to have to fight legal battles for the length of your patent?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
The ubiquitous format for exchanging mediums between computers? What about CD-ROMS? *coughISO-9960cough*
It can't be a MS format, otherwise all my Microsoft-approved CDs from 10+ years ago wouldn't work in my new Microsoft CD-ROM drive with my Microsoft operating system.
Don't forget to donate!
One down, hundreds to go!
The patent process has become a hindrance to software development in many cases and it should definitely be much harder to get patent of this kind. Hopefully more patents in the U.S. and worldwide get challenged and discarded.
Microsoft's patent on SUGAR and PROTEIN also being reviewed after a mysterious figure known only as 'god' claimed to invent them...
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
On one hand, no patents means that inventing something immediately gets stolen, evil corporation profits millions of dollars, joe inventor gets squat.
However, too many patents means that when joe inventor makes something, evil corporation sues him for violating patent 284958390*pi^12, "Use of energy to propell machine," and steals his work anyway, making millions of dollars while give the original invetor squat.
It has been quite frustrating to see companies not bother to take these steps. Corporations with significant IP portfolios tend to let it slide knowing that they can just exchange usage of their own silly patent rights if there was ever friction. In the end only the new players (aka innovators!) are victims.
Is it possible to make patent approvals open-source? Which is to say, volunteers (preferably, whole teams thereof) would do the work done now by individual patent clerks (Patent reviewers? Whatever they're called), with all decisions publicly reviewable and modifiable.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
sure, NTFS is the file system of choice for newer windows boxes. but there are still plenty of other devices using the FAT system, such as digital cameras, mp3 players, personal video recorders, etc. still plenty of money to be made.
Microsoft has actively participated in various forums to get the world hooked on FAT. Now they're wanting to charge for it.... Part of how they got there was by exerting their power over the desktops (which smells of anti-trust). For example FAT is part of the SmartMedia spec and has got incorporated into SmartMedia cards and hence the peripherals. I bet Microsoft would have refused to get involved with a non-FAT file system and essentiually the camera etc vendors had to choose between some other standard and being able to hook their cameras to Windows PCs.
Now there are a lot of other flash file systems out there that work with SmartMedia cards etc, but they are not supported by MS and never will be.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I remember file systems based around the ideas of FAT at least back to the Apple II+. And if I'm not mistaken, Apple's literature referred to it as "FAT" (I wish now I hadn't given all that old stuff away a few years ago).
I don't see how this patent could possibly be held valid...well...wait a minute...this is the US Patent Office we're talking about here. We should be afraid.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Why do they do this? It's not really to make a better shave like they say. It's so that once they've spent millions of dollars pushing a particular product, someone else can't come out with "Sensor-compatible" heads to take away their massive profits.
I understand that companies need to protect themselves, but it's one thing when they make something different that's better, and quite another when they've made something that's different and just better marketed. This sort of patent activity is a waste of time and an abuse of the system which makes it more difficult for legitimate inventions to be properly considered.
OK, I'm done with my little soapbox rant. It's just that I know some people who are small inventors and have a few patents having to do with radiation detectors, and I've seen the work that he's gone through to protect his inventions, and it makes me sick to think that some huge company with a big IP law department can force through some ridiculous patent while it takes a little guy years to get the final paperwork on truly innovative concepts.
Sigh.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Well, there was this guy named Einstein, ever heard of him? ;)
Einstein: What is it you would like to patent? ... *ruffles through the pages, knocks Smith unconscious, and runs off with the papers*
Smith: I call it Smith's Theory of Relativity.
Einstein:
Nyo nyo, the Neko Boy has spoken.
Why wait until now to pursue it? Well if they'd kicked off an action in 1996 the mass of consumer electronic devices (cameras, MP3s etc) would likely not have adopted FAT.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If you go to their "Activities" page and read the request itself, they are talking about:
5,579,517
which covers the "long file names" stuff Windows 95 introduced, and they site two patents:
5,307,494 to Yasumatsu et al., and
5,367,671 to Feigenbaum et al.
as new prior art.
Before, the patent (on browser plugins) being challenged belonged to an individual who was suing Microsoft and even managed to get an injunction (can't remember whether they actually ordered Microsoft to pay or not).
That patent was quickly challenged and nullified. While the w3c and other groups initiated the challenge, I think the reason the patent was nullified was that it belonged to someone who was being used to (successfully) target Microsoft.
Now the patent being challenged belongs to Microsoft, and is being challenged by some small-time nobody (as far as Big Business is concerned).
My prediction is that either the challenge itself will be rejected, or the patent office will "review" the patent and find it "valid". Not because of any merits the patent may have, but because of who owns it. The guys running the patent office know who butters their bread, and it ain't organizations like PUBPAT.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Microsoft's 'FAT' patents do not patent FAT... specifically, they patent the VFAT extensions to FAT. And, as was previously mentioned on slashdot, there's much prior art to using long file names on FAT as well.
So don't call them 'FAT' patents, because they aren't. Call them VFAT patents. Or call them by their names, which also makes it obvious.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Didn't 4DOS support long filenames on top of FAT long before VFAT (Windows 95) did?
I'm pretty sure I remember using 4DOS around the DOS 3.3 to DOS 5.0 days.
My other first post is car post.
These patents are not for the FAT file system. IANAL. The Microsoft one is for long file name support that goes on top of the FAT file system. The "prior art" one (5307494) describes some sort of long file name support augmenting a specific file system, but does not state which file system from what I can tell.
As you may have read in a prior Slashdot article, no ordinary fine is going to stop Microsoft from changing its anticompetitive ways. But suppose the next time Microsoft was fined, the fine was this: "All your patents are hereby revoked, and you will never be granted another! Furthermore, the next time your actions are brought before this Court and found to be illegal, all your copyrights will be revoked!"
I bet THAT would get Microsoft's attention!
Remember, MS Cortislim isn't for everyone - only those who want to lose 10, 20, 30 megs of data or more should use MS Cortislim.
Call now and you'll receive an extra 1 month license for every 2 months you purchase!
Wait a second... Assume Data Structures A and B (c-style pseudo code):And take Operating Systems X and Y, where Y is implemented from scratch to work similar to X. Please take into account that the source tree of Y currently is over 200 MB (2.6.5-mm1, unpacked).
Do you seriously want to claim that the difference between A and B is anywhere close to the difference between X and Y?
IMO that's a bit like telling me that accidentially inhaling (and thereby killing) a fly in my sleep is pretty similar to the holocaust. Or claiming that a single molecule of Water is pretty similar to the atlantic ocean. Or claiming that the "word" "GATC" is pretty similar to all of mankind.
Free as in mason.
From what I understand, the patent is on a way of storing long filenames with the FAT filesystem. This first came out with Windows 95 and is implemented in a backward compatible manner.
Basically the issue is this... in FAT there are a fixed number of bytes to each file entry in the directory. It is only enough for 8+3 character filename. They could not just expand on this data structure because it would not be backward compatible. What they realized is that if you created a filename with the system, hidden and some other attributes set, the old versions of dos would never display the filename. So what they do to store a long filename is create multiple file entries each storing a few bytes of the long filename plus some additional data to piece it together. Basically in a old version of dos, these extra file entries would never be displayed but in windows 95 or newer, it would read and maintain both the short filename entry and the long filename entries.
Microsoft's FAT patent?
I didn't know Microsoft patented Ballmer.
How can a workaround/extension of a filesystem to implement a feature that was in other filesystems for decades be not obvious? Despite what this AC might think, long filenames weren't invented by Microsoft.
Playing catch-up with the competition and implementing their features is the most obvious thing you can do.
This blind Microsoft loyality is really amazing. I don't say that Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to get ideas from others, everybody does it - but getting a patent for an extension for a feature the competition had decades before? That's just ridiculous.
a) Using a lookup table (to convert betwen long and short)
b) Using a hashing algorithm (to create short from long).
Its pretty obvious that these are entirely novel solutions to a unique problem, and are nothing to do with the use of hashing algorithms (eg during WWII) or lookup tables (eg civilisations prior to the ancient greeks)
The truth is, these absolutely must be novel, because ...[need more coffee]
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Microsoft's patent application was originally filed in 1993. So, the question is whether their claims (see below) were novel and nonobvious as of that date.
Claim:
1. In a computer system having a processor running an operating system and a memory means storing the operating system, a method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:
(a) storing in the memory means a first directory entry for a file wherein the first directory entry holds a short filename for the file, said short filename including at most a maximum number of characters that is permissible by the operating system;
(b) storing in the memory means a second directory entry for a the file wherein the second directory entry holds a long filename for the file and wherein the second directory entry includes an attributes field which may be set to make the second directory entry invisible to the operating system and the step of storing the second directory entry further comprises the step of setting the attributes field so that the second directory entry is invisible to the operating system, said long filename including more than the maximum number of characters that is permissible by the operating system; and
(c) accessing the first directory entry with the operating system.