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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.
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}
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
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.
Woa....they can reject patents? ;)
~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
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")