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Microsoft FAT Patent Rejected
dkh2 writes "It's being reported other places as well but, there's a very nice story over at Groklaw about efforts by the Public Patent Foundation (PubPat) to get Microsoft's patent on FAT restricted or revoked. Bearing in mind that Microsoft still has right of appeal, The USPTO has rejected Microsofts FAT patent." Our earlier story reported on efforts to overturn this patent.
A perfect example of how the system should work. The patent office doesn't need a reform, it needs to simply do a better job of following its own rules. Organizations like PubPat are a good thing, because they add another layer of checking (i.e. public responsibility) to the patent process.
It may surprise many to know that patent officers are often promoted on how many patents they reject, not how many they approve. Thus it is in their interest to reject any applications with even the slightest possibility of being invalid. Yet it seems that ridiculous patents make it through anyway. How does this happen?
The answer lies in the patent lawyers who draw up the papers. What they'll do, is that they'll draw up revision after revision of the idea until the patent office is confused enough to grant it. (Or perhaps they lucked upon a new patent officer.) That's why most of these patents seem so vague. The applicants are making sure that there's no way someone who doesn't have a very thorough education in the field of the patent could understand that the idea is unpatentable. Thus the idea passes through the process and must be challenged in court or via reexamination later.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Will they do the same with the thousand IBM useless patents?
I cannot believe this very patent was rejected, not that I am unhappy with this but we live in a world where one-click-buyis okay to patent, unlike a rudimentary but at least more complex file-system...
Guess the patent people run Windows.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Oh, I'm sorry, I actually meant they are full of BLOAT, not FAT.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
According to more of the text at groklaw, 70% of those patents challenged, are eventually rejected, just like this one.
Far better than going through the courts once the patent is being defended by nazgul style lawyers is to defeat it on merits with the patent office. Looks like Dan Ravicher is onto something that could do with all our support.
Thank God.
Any refusal of software patent is good in my books.
http://www.s.camelo.btinternet.co.uk/what.jpg
In related news, the US Patent Office also rejected Bill Gates' patent applications for fire and the wheel. ~Knautilus
Guess MS's case was a little THIN. {Ahhh, I feel better now}
Seems to me a patent would have run out by now.
o ry
If you look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT_file_system#Hist
You'll see a couple landmarks:
FAT12 - 1980
FAT16 - 1983
VFAT - 1995
FAT32 - 1997
But really, the FAT file system is 24 years old at this point. How can you patent something you did 24 years ago and you've not complained about it in all that time?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Definitely *not* an example of how it should work. You have an external organisation doing the job that the patent office itself should be doing. That's a failure in need of reform. Perhaps if business processes and software were not patentable, the patent office might have more resources to devote to patents which are worthy of being granted.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
i think i should remind everyone, this patent is not on the FAT filesystem itself, but the VFAT extension for long file names. (which, if you know how it works, is nothing innovative)
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
What the zarking faquaad are you talking about? Trolling?
The patent was rejected on obviousness grounds. As in, anybody skilled in the art at the time of invention would have found the invention obvious.
This is pathetic! How this ridiculous license scheme would work with so much of the population obese is beyond me. And the people who would be forced to pay the most, would be the least likely to be able to defend themselves in court without the use of a small crane to leave the house.
" As lawyer, this is ridiculous."
As a developer, this is wonderful.
Software patents are a bad idea. The only people who think differently are lawyers and developers who are mostly under 35 years of age.
All software is derivative.
More to the point, the greatest renassaince in software development came prior to patents of software. It is literally destroying the software industry. Oh, except for MS and IBM.
Really, get a clue.
...such as the following:
U.S. Patent #5,579,517 - Common name space for long and short filenames
U.S. Patent #5,745,902 - Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats
U.S. Patent #5,758,352 - Common name space for long and short filenames
U.S. Patent #6,286,013 - Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
On a warm summer's evenin' about a patent bound for approvals,
I called up the patent officers; they were too tired to speak.
They just took turns a starin' at the leagal techno babble
'til mind-numbing boredom overtook them, and errors began to creap.
One said, son, I've made a life out of readin' people's patents,
And knowin' what their prior arts were by the way they dotted their i's.
So if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're really reachin.
For my sons university education, I'll give you some advice.
So I met and wrote his man a cheque, and he looked the zero's that followed.
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.
Said, if you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to appeal 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to sue.
You never count your patents when you're sittin' at the judges table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the approval's done.
Now ev'ry patent leecher knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to sell off and knowing what to keep.
'cause in ev'ry merger's a winner and ev'ry buyout a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to grab patents while people sleep.
So when he'd finished speakin', he turned back towards the window,
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness the patent officer, he got even.
But in his final words I found a crooked officer I could keep.
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to appeal 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to sue.
You never count your patents when you're sittin' at the judges table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the approval's done.
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to appeal 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to sue.
You never count your patents when you're sittin' at the judges table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the approval's done.
With nods to Kenny Rogers
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Here's what Ravicher says about this development, "I hope those companies that chose to take a license from Microsoft for the patent negotiated refund clauses so that they can get their money back."
But what about those who have paid SCO for licenses to use Linux? Even if they have negotiated refund clauses, it seems very unlikely that they'll get one.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Software is covered under copyright and should NEVER EVER be patented. It would be like me writing a certain kind of story and then after that no one whould be ever allowed to write that kind of story without paying me a royalty first.
Repeat after me, software should NEVER EVER be granted a patent.
Too bad it got rejected. I was hoping the patent would push people away from FAT. Perhaps just the patent will do the trick, though.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I doubt you are a lawyer. Look at your previous slashdot posts.
Nothing in that comment makes sense. What are you talking about? Those patents were for a minor modification to old 24-year old specification that was in the public domain. This has no open source ramifications. There are lots of things that people or organizations create things that are not patentable. That doesn't mean it is a precedent every time a patent is rejected.
Are you working for Microsoft? What do you mean call the EFF? What, and tell them congratulations? Does Microsoft now register trolls on Slashdot to try and sway public opinion?
[...] They are effectively ruling that Microsoft cannot hold a patent on software they created. [...]
The FAT filesystem itself is not "software", it is a specification. You only talk about "software" when you think of an implementation of FAT, like those found in Windows and the Linux kernel.
Score: i, Imaginary
Dear Windows,
Service pack 2 makes you look fat.
Love,
Your Ex
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
There is no logic in your statement. The EFF would not support this, so what are you trying to really say?
Damnit!!! I was really hoping MS would get a patent on FAT, so I could tell my ass it was infringing and draft up a cease & desist .....
Groove Salad -- a nicely chilled plate of ambient grooves and beats.
So, did they finally reach the patent cap?
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
What the fuck do trademarks have to do with anything?
Stupid troll. They're not saying that nobody should be able to have patents. They're saying you can't patent something that you released to the public over 10 years ago.
Woa....they can reject patents? ;)
~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
Aren't we supposed to hate USPTO??? What's going on?
Give that man some mod points--that's an excellent question people haven't even considered. Our precious Linux-backing IBM holds even more useless patents than Microsoft does. But they're given a pass because they support Linux.
Since you were modded 'Interesting' and not 'Funny', obviously some mods were suckered into what I hope was your sarcasm. (Sarchasm - the gulf between the writer of sarcastic wit and the one who doesn't get it).
Microsoft can patent stuff - but this particular 'invention' was rejected because it was obvious. Something that's patentable must not only be novel, it must be non-obvious.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
argh, talking to girls and posting on /. don't mix
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Microsoft SLIM patent accepted.
We just cut off som features, said a Microsoft spokesman, and then it sneaked through.
I am a little overweight and I have some frieds that eat too much and don't get enough exercise. I know we will all be relieved to hear that we don't have to pay royalties on our cellulite.
Actually even if copyrights vanished overnight, the free software community will be one of the least affected. Of course GPL would no longer mean anything, and much troubles may ensue, but life will probably go on in the community. Now that we are talking about patents, a court decision such as the one you mentioned will hardly do any harm to our community.
>It may surprise many to know that patent officers are often promoted on how many patents they reject, not how many they approve. Thus it is in their interest to reject any applications with even the slightest possibility of being invalid.
Do we now? I can tell you this is BS and you are misinformed.
Help fight continental drift.
This ruling simply recognizes that Microsoft's VFAT implementation is an obvious application of and extention to common practice and previously patented inventions. I says nothing at all like what you are claiming.
I know, I know ... IHBT IHL HAND.
I'm not new here (see my UID), but even on /. it is depressing to see obvious tripe like this modded up.
OTOH, though it pains me to say so, I do agree with one of the troll's points -- it is indeed a fine idea to support the EFF (and PubPat), if you agree that our IP systems are seriously out of whack.
The system is broken. The system might have been able to work in 1800 when the amount of 'stuff' that had to be taken into account was 1/10000 of what it is today. In 1800 a single individual could be expert on most of science and technology. Now, someone with a four year degree is barely scratching the surface. Doing a meaningful search for prior art is a daunting task and much of the time it looks like it doesn't get done properly.
In the face of a blizzard of bogus patents, getting them rectified one at a time just won't work. If Microsoft says that I am violating one of their patents, I have to give up; I just can't afford the lawyer's bill. Therefore the system works only in favor of the big guy and the lawyers.
Umm the idea of patenting software is stupid. You can not patent a book, movie, story, sheet music or comic books! Software should be handled under copyright law not patent law.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
for MS if it was granted to them and given Gates a bunch more bling bling.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
If file system compatibility really helped THAT much, then BeOS would have owned Linux and Be would be a viable contender today. BeOS' support for Fat32 and NTFS, especially in how easy it was for users to mount them from the desktop, was well above that of the Linux desktops of BeOS' day. When you wanted to mount a drive, a right click on the desktop showed the Fat32 and NTFS partitions as plainly as a BFS partition so the whole process was the same to John Q. Not only that, but BeOS back then also automatically recognized new partitions, something Linux did not and still doesn't seem to do well.
What keeps people loyal to Microsoft in the U.S. is the popularity of its products combined with the variety of games and home software for Windows. Office and Windows have a symbiotic relationship, you take down one, the other goes down eventually, but Windows is more important to Microsoft because the home market provides a solid foundation for Office. Installing a game on Windows is easy for the average home user, but not on Linux.
Game developers don't want to waste their time getting around that. Until a very comprehensive, attractive way to install home software is availible, Linux and other OSS projects will be left behind. The best way for Linux developers to get around this is probably to make a concerted effort to emulate Apple's framework system so that all of the dependencies one needs to have in place are part of the Linux game's ".app directory." Either that or program the games in a combination of C# and C and pray that Mono doesn't die on users.
Maybe it's just my perspective, but interoperability with things like FAT only do so much for the average user. In the long run, it's a lot more complicated than that. If interoperability were the key, then BeOS and MacOS X would have eaten Windows alive a long time ago.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I think you missed the point as others have posted. You cannot hold a patent if the idea has prior art. And this is just the case for FAT. The methods they tried to patent have been in public domain. It only seems fair. Imagine what the consequences would be if you could hold a patent on prior art!
MSWords -- a patented approach for combining letters of the alphabet into meaningful units that can be "read" (for info on "reading", see MS patent 9997645, "A method for interpreting strings of alphabetic characters")
The patent was rejected based on prior art.
From the patent office rejection statement:
"...patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains."
What we need to do is fight fire with fire. For instance, I should take out a patent on ugly, then sue the holy hell out of Gates and Balmer. At $1 per degree of ugly, I could buy Peru.
The USPTO has rejected a patent? I can't seem to find a site that tells you the weather in hell, because I'm curious to see if it has frozen over.
Even for this case alone, these guys deserve our support.
or maybe it was because the mods thought that karma points should be given for "funny" comments. Currently you dont get positive karma for +1 funny.
Seriously, if they aren't competent to do the job, their responsibilities should be reduced to the point that they are compentent. i.e. Patents should be published for an extended period for discussion before being granted by a vote from interested parties. The patent examiners responsibilities can then be reduced to managing the process.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Wrong country [blush]. According to a randomly selecte law firm, this long.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Don't you mean....
i think i should remind everyone, this patent is not on the FAT files~1 itself, but the VFAT extens~1 for long file names. (which, if you know how it works, is nothing innova~1)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Because it covers only one method of long filename to short filename conversion.
The scheme patented covered one possible way to convert long filenames into valid dos names by truncating the name and adding ~nn. Windows does this by counting the number of short names, and using this count as the nn value. E.g.
ALongFilename1.txt will have short name ALONGF~1.TXT
ALongFilename2.txt will have short name ALONGF~2.TXT
This is bad because you need to make multiple scans thought the directory to generate the short filenames. There is another patent for a data structure to speed this process up.
You don't have to use this short filename generation method - VxWorks dos FS 2.0 uses a hex hash of the long filename for instance. Thus you'd get this
ALongFilename1.txt will have short name 37f38765.TXT
ALongFilename2 will have short name (more random gibberish).
The idea here is that if you never use Dos, the ugliness of the short filenames doesn't really matter because you only see the long ones.
You could also use the position in the directory for the last two numbers - there are endless possibilities. Provided you link the long filename and short filename correctly - there is a checksum byte in the long filename which links back to the short one, Windows will still be able to see both versions of the filename.
Of course for many applications like digital cameras, 8.3 is still OK.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I just read TFA and realised that the patent referred to "long filenames".
My bad. Mod me -1 Moron. :-)
This is actual text from the patent "An improved butt hinge is disclosed in which each hinge half comprises a leaf portion formed integrally with a butt strap. A second leaf portion mounts to each butt strap after the butt straps are mounted to a door and door frame."
Slashdot, news and commentary on par with CBS.
So, with the MS Fat Patent rejected, does that mean we will see a new slimmer Windows OS?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Aren't 95% of us North Americans FAT?
Given a pass by whom? You're oversimplifying things if you think that anyone here is "giving IBM a pass" because they back Linux. Anyone with half a brain knows that IBM is backing Linux for pragmatic reasons and I'm fairly certain that I'm not alone in hoping they go after IBM's patents too.
P.S. Your bias is showing
U.S. Patent #5,579,517
U.S. Patent #5,745,902
U.S. Patent #5,758,352
U.S. Patent #6,286,013
If Mr. Ravicher is correct and 70% of patents are revoked in re-examination, then at least one of these will survive.
The ".app" system has a serious flaw; duplicated libraries. Look what happened when a flaw was discovered in GDI+'s JPEG code.
I guess being a Patent attorney gives me a little different view on things like this.
General Motors reconsiders persuing a patent on the steering wheel...
Which useless IBM patent would you prefer they go after? Please cite why you think it is useless, and the benefit if it is overturned. Someone has to invest significant time in an effort to overturn a patent. You want to choose your targets carefully. The reason that this patent was considered important to overturn is not that it was owned by M$, but the potential impact if it wasn't.
It almost seems as if you feel the motivation for overturning individual patents should be to go after organizations, rather than to go after bad patents that could have a significant impact if not overturned.
Not only that, but BeOS back then also automatically recognized new partitions, something Linux did not and still doesn't seem to do well.
/proc/partitions".
Type "cat
Seems to work fine for me.
If I plug in a USB disk, the new partitions will automatically show up in that list.
Life is too short to proofread.
Patent Nazi: No patent for you, come back one year!
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Those founding fathers ruined everything when they wrote that silly constitution. They just had to stick in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12. Everything was fine until that moment.
A low-carb alternative was accepted.
Check my journal for gmail invites!
The SCO Group has just filed for a patent on cholesterol.
Wouldn't it be better to measure "ugly" in ...moles?
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
This reminds me of a story. On matriculation day at a UC campus, the chancellor said "One out of every three students here is gay. Look at the person to your left. Look at the person to your right. If they're not gay, you are."
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
It's not too hard to connect the dots and see the relationship between OSRM's business model (which benefits from reduced patent risk for Linux) and PUBPAT's agenda, which is to rid the world of bogus patents.
Since this is Slashdot, I don't expect many people will recant their negative comments about OSRM, but I hope most people recognize this as the type of work that OSRM/PUBPAT can do that will have some real positive benefits for Linux, whether you buy OSRM's insurance or not.
What? MS is now in the weightloss business, too?
So is MS fat good for us, or bad?
Everybody take note if you will about the Public Patent Foundation. This group is needed without doubt.
I think what my grandparent meant was that, in BeOS, you stick in a new disk and, lo, it is merely a click away. (I never used BeOS for any serious length of time, so I am just guessing.) Here in Linux-land, we cat /proc/partitions, then su, then mount, then become mortal once more, then use, then su again, then umount, then go get a beer. Oh sure, we could just add /dev/sda1 to /etc/fstab, but then what happens when we want to use two USB disks? Or maybe we sometimes use a USB Zip drive? (They use partition 4, for no apparent reason.) Or maybe the USB disk lacks a partition table, so the device we should mount is /dev/sda? It's all stuff we have/had to learn, which is more than just clicking "USB Disk".
Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with it. Just feeding the flames...
There's an answer to that: all libraries in .apps are .frameworks. The system knows what .frameworks are available and uses the newest.
Also, common frameworks can be stored centrally to avoid bloat due to redundant frameworks.
Main advantage in the central storage case is easy installation: since all resources (such as headers, images, sounds or translations) are inside the framework folder, it's sufficient to drag the framework to your frameworks folder.
How about tiny linux
or DSL
Or go with my favourite and install just what you require...
http://request-header.info
before 1980! at least over my body so would that count as proof of previous art?? right?
My penguin ate my sig
Apple's .app system is based on NeXT's .app structure, which is implemented / supported by GNUStep. One of the nicest features of it is that it can contain binaries and resources for multiple platforms / architectures, allowing the same .app bundle to be used for OS X and GNUStep on multiple CPU types.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I think what my grandparent meant was that, in BeOS, you stick in a new disk and, lo, it is merely a click away. (I never used BeOS for any serious length of time, so I am just guessing.) Here in Linux-land, we cat /proc/partitions, then su, then mount, then become mortal once more, then use, then su again, then umount, then go get a beer.
/dev/sda1. That way the device always shows up in the same place, not matter what order you plug them in.
That all depends on how your distribution is configured. If you're using knoppix, for example, then the drives do automatically pop up on the desktop.
Ask for getting a driver to mount in the same place all the time, the trick I use on my Gentoo desktop is to use a LABEL= entry instead of mounting
I'm not saying linux is perfect, but it has a lot of capabilities people don't know about. Maybe someone will read this and go: Ah! That's the solution to my problem.
Life is too short to proofread.
Because you're an expert on the patents both companies hold, right?
Give me a break.
If you think software patents are stupid, then just say that. Unless you've worked at both companies and know first-hand the differences between the types of patents involved, you do not have the foundation to make your claim.
A history lesson:
...and now you know the whole story.
IBM builds the IBM PC-XT from (almost entirely) off the shelf parts. Decides it wants to license CP/M as the operating system. Sends lawyers to Gary Kildall (owner/developer)'s house, who wasn't there at the time. His wife refuses to sign IBM's crazy NDA. IBM is approached my Microsoft and licensed an OS (which Microsoft didn't actually have at the time). Microsoft buys QDOS (which, rumor has it, was in part ripped-off from CP/M) from Seattle Computing something-or-other, for a paltry fraction of what it's getting from IBM (and without mentioning the IBM deal at all). Microsoft rebrands QDOS MS-DOS; IBM then rebrands (their licensed version) IBM PC-DOS. Kildall's company (Digital Research) attempts to get into the market with a tweaked version of CP/M, rebranded DR-DOS (which became Novell DOS, which became Caldera DR-DOS, then fell into more or less complete obscurity, if it hadn't already been there).
I'm certain this has consequences for innovation and economic motivation, according to the dire forecasts by intellectual property holding groups (who are clearly experts on the issues involved). Can someone elucidate on what we as a society are giving up by not allowing inventors exclusive rights to their inventions?
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Ahhh you obviously have no idea what you're reading. It's a fucking hinge.
Ingolfke, commentary on par with George W. Bush.
ITHINK~1.(WH
:)
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
A method for determining average molecular energy present in escatological, theological, or purgatory-like environments tied to eternity and either removed from or integrated with the mortal realm of affairs.
that's phat. err, fat. uh, FAT.
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
> An improved butt hinge is disclosed in which
> each hinge half comprises a leaf portion formed
> integrally with a butt strap
I always wondered how Goatse man achieved that remarkable feat, and now we know.
He used a butt hinge.
> A second leaf portion mounts to each butt
> strap after the butt straps are mounted to
> a door and door frame
Sounds pretty painful, but nothing worth doing comes easily.
The US Patent System actually worked correctly for a change!
...and automatic -5 if you can't rewrite them and keep it remotely singable.
Such as in this case.
It grates on me to hear you claim that 10% of software patents are "totally valid and legal." They are in effect legal because the USPTO and certain lower court decisions validated them, but the US Supreme Court has always, always, always declared algorithms not to be statutory material for a patent. Their last word on the subject (Diehr) clearly would not allow "a competent draftsman to evade" the law about what is and isn't patentable by careful wording of the application.
Just to be clear, the Court did not rule that all software was nonstatutory, just all software for general-purpose digital computers, since such software is in essence a mathematical algorithm. Software that doesn't clearly fall into that category (say, RISC pipelining) is rarely claimed in the patents that come up in slashdot stories, and even those aren't necessarily "totally valid and legal." The Court said legislative clarification was needed.
AFAIK, the latest builds of Firefox have this bug fixed (so Slashdot should render ok with 1.0 once it's out), but currently (if you want to be nicer to slash's servers) you can change the size instead of refreshing the page to get the correct layout - and if you didn't know, you can do this handily by holding down Ctrl and either pressing '+' followed by a '-', or turning the mouse wheel up and down. Voilá.
Now as to why IE renders Slashdot better, it probably has something to do with this; IE seems to be more tolerant to bad html (whether this is a good thing is a matter of another debate).
Sorry, but you're wrong. For the very reason you state: "...the meat of the problem is that spaces are natural language delimiters". That's why people should be able to use them in a filename. If my Mum(TM) wants to name her file "recipe for bakewell tart" then she should be free to do so; she isn't a geek and would not understand why she'd be forced to type "recipe_for_tarts" or whatever. The fact that spaces are used as delimiters in command lines is unfortunate, though arguably equally natural. That these two are incompatible is a problem to be overcome, but the solution is NOT to eliminate spaces from one or the other, but to deal with it in some other way. If one has to give, then the benefit of the doubt MUST go to the non-geek user - the geeks have the knowledge to deal with the limitations in the much narrower special case they deal with. Frankly it would be pretty easy to add something like using parentheses or quote marks to delimit a filename with spaces on a command line, and not too onerous to deal with. The obvious difficulty is the sheer volume of the legacy of NOT having done it this way years ago, since when the CLI conventions were established the geeks ran the place.
Well at least be glad that the term of a U.S. patent isn't this long.
Which brings us to "DLL Hell" when a framework mainainer inadvertently makes subtly incompatible changes to the framework's API semantics.
If your Mum(TM) wants to pass me in a no-passing zone, she should be able to. Because she's not a skilled driver would not understand why that screws everything up.
Computers are not, and should not be, all about "people should have whatever they want because they are God's_Glorious_Creation(TM) or Your_Mum(TM)". They need to be restricted to a set of behaviours that optimizes the environment for everybody. Just like the rest of the real world.
The entire idea that people should not have to learn to follow a rule because they don't understand the reason for it is specious. In this specific case, there are very good reasons for the no-space rule; therefore, it is reasonable to require, nay, force, people to follow the rule. Like not deleting system files. :)
There's a worse problem lurking here. Because your Mum(TM), apparently, cannot be expected to learn reasonable file naming procedures, everyone else has to dumb down to her level. All of us geeks, plus all of the nongeeks who, unlike your Mum(TM), can learn new things without blowing a cranial artery out, all of the children who learn new things easily and just do what they have to do because it comes easily to them. Underneath this, computer systems have to change in ways that are not minor. This, of course, causes programs to fail (which Mum(TM) doesn't understand either, even though she's the reason for it in the final analysis) when programs fail, data is lost, computer controlled machines make mistakes.
So while I hold no grudge towards your Mum(TM), I do wish that instead of declaring the world an intellectual free-fire zone for her, we had held her to a standard which didn't allow spaces. She doesn't need to understand why. She just has to do it correctly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"Installing a game on Windows is easy for the average home user, but not on Linux."
./setup.sh
Yeah, that was rough.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
No, they get a "count" for sending the first Office Action. Then, if after the Final rejection, they get a count for a Request For Continued Examination. Then they also get a count for issuing a patent. It is in their interest to reject the patent at first, have the applicant narrow the scope of the patent, reject that, applicant narrows again, and then approve it. Which brings me to...
What [patent lawyers will] do, is that they'll draw up revision after revision of the idea until the patent office is confused enough to grant it.
Except the fact that all revisions have to be supported by the original specification. You can make corrections to the specification to clarify the subject matter, but you cannot add any. In fact, correcting the specification in any way other that to fix a typo is frowned upon in general and will make your patent much weaker in the event of litigation for the very reason you are citing.
The applicants are making sure that there's no way someone who doesn't have a very thorough education in the field of the patent could understand that the idea is unpatentable.
Complete bunk. In fact, the patent examiner will some times direct the applicant on how to amend the claims so that they are allowable over the prior art BECAUSE they see a distinguishing feature.
You are completely full of it and it is obvious you have never prosecuted a single patent application in your life. +5? Whatever
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
or maybe "./setup.sh" then a input for where you want the game installed .... many linux users have no idea where programs are installed
Here's the story. The patent is in a "Re-examination." On Sept. 16th the USPTO issued it's first non-final action in relation to this re-exam. While, it looks like the scanned dept of the USPTO messed up and only included the first page of the nineteen total pages so one can't review the sites or if it's a 102 (novel) or a 103 (non-obvious) rejection, I can tell you was a patent attorney that 99% of the time you receive a first action non-final rejection.
It is almost like the examiner feels the need to "paper the file." What will happen next is that M$'s attorneys will respond to the action stating reasons the examiner is off of thier rocker (respectively of course).
The examiner will either cave and allow some or all of the claims, do another search and issue yet another non-final action, or issued a final rejection.
Now, if a final rejection is issued, it's not exactly final. M$'s attorneys will then file amendments after final, have a conference with the examiner and/or file an appeal to the USPTO Patent Board of Appeals. If THEY find for the examiner then M$ could file suit in federal court in D.C. If they find for M$ then the examiner may allow the case or simply do another search and find yet another reason to reject the patent application.
In other words, this is just the start of a very long and boring saga.
Stop undressing me with your eyes. I'm ugly naked.