Microsoft FAT Patent Upheld

theodp writes "After initially rejecting Microsoft's File Allocation Table (FAT) patents, the USPTO has ruled them valid. From the article: 'Microsoft has won a debate where they were the only party allowed to speak, in that the patent re-examination process bars the public from rebutting arguments made by Microsoft, said unimpressed Public Patent Foundation President Dan Ravicher.'"

Comments

The patents

[cbdougla]

According to this link: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp , three of the patents (U.S. Patent #5,579,517, U.S. Patent #5,758,352 and U.S. Patent #6,286,013) all cover the "Common Name Space for short and long filenames."

What other parts of the FAT filesystem are protected by patents? This aspect of the FAT filesystem is just darn near obsolete as there aren't many systems that absolutely have to have the 8.3 format anymore are there?

Now, I have to admit, this is something that seems fairly specific to Microsoft's needs and is not a feature I've seen in any other filesystem. However, it also seems that this might be fairly easily just...excluded...without causing any really serious issues.

I am probably oversimplifying things.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no technical reason to use FAT at all, it is only in common usage because of Microsofts desktop monopoly. FAT was used by vendors for the benefit of Microsoft customers, Microsoft respond by stabbing everyone in the back. Time to start petitioning OEM's to ship a GPL'd 3rd party Windows filesystem driver by default, then we petition for device support.

C# and CLR on linux people take note, Microsoft never acts in good faith. Why file for patents unless you plan to enforce them? Ever heard the phrase "trust a fox"?

Re:Food chain

[QuantaStarFire]

The problem is, they don't come pre-installed...

They're also kinda buggy. I'm using them right now since I couldn't format my 120GB IDE drive for FAT32 past 32GB or so (and there was no way in hell I was splitting it up into 4 pieces), and I wasn't too sure what else I could use to format for FAT32, so I used ext2.

It's been interesting what happens. If I look in a folder with thumbnails, it generates a thumb.db file, followed by a thumb.db::encryptable file. When you delete the ::encryptable file, Windows tends to choke (though it still deletes), so you have to delete several times if you've got a lot of images or video to delete.

I've also had problems with installing/uninstalling software. It wouldn't allow me to install World of Warcraft at all on it. I installed Final Fantasy XI on it, but then ran into problems that it couldn't save my settings. Even worse was that when I tried to uninstall it, I'd bluescreen and have to do it again. What I ended up doing was just deleting the folder from the disk, then uninstalling (which worked, which boggled my mind because there was nothing left for it to uninstall except registry entries).

They've been fine otherwise, but I'd rather have my FAT32 back. It's far less buggy, and it's fairly stable in Linux as well.

Re:Food chain

[CloakedMirror]

Hmmm...how hard is this to figure out? Let's see...

I got it! Let's not pre-install any file system! Woah! That's a dangerous idea!

The fact that the manufacturer may pre-install a FAT based file system does not equate to the manufacturer being required to pre-install any file system.

Memory, whether in the form of RAM, EPROM (in all its various flavors), or some sort of spinning opto/mechanical media, does not have a file system until someone puts one there. Send out unformatted flash cards and they get whatever file system is applied by the user's equipment!

"Score:4, Informative"? You have alot of room to talk about moderation!