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Germany Rejects Microsoft FAT Patent

Posted by kdawson on from the skinny-on-inventiveness dept.

Askmum writes in with news that a German patent court has ruled Microsoft's patent on FAT invalid in that country, finding that it is "not based on inventive activity." Just one of 6,000-odd patents Microsoft has amassed since a 1991 memo from Bill Gates turned around the company's attitude to patents.

35 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Ya gotta fight fire with fire by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't fault MSFT for patenting everything they can. Apple does it, Google does it, everyone does it. Eolas does it.

    The system is broken. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The system is broken. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

      We hate MS for many reasons. Just because we hate the patent system too, doesn't mean we cant enjoy a little chuckle when MS takes a much needed slap.

    2. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, you hate MSFT for all the business practices you love from Apple or Google.

      I know slashdot is a bunch of young'uns who personify corporations as either friend or foe.

      I'm just pointing out that corporations are things, not beings, and they are a part of a system, and behave as they are supposed to within the system.

      It's the system that was set up to allow robber barons to swindle stockholders, stifle innovation with patents, and clog our legal system with crap.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    3. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by mstahl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While it may be best to think of corporations as things and not beings (I don't think it's healthy to think of them as best buddies or arch nemeses either), there really isn't much personification going on. They actually are (at least in the US) legally identical to individuals. That's in the sense that they can commit crimes and get sued or pay taxes.

      It's probably a good thing that corporations can't get married.

    4. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by dreamchaser · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, MS is executing it's legal obligations to maximize profit. It *is* the system that your ire should be directed at in this case. I notice you didn't make mention of Apple, etc. They *all* do it, and currently they have to.

      Fix the patent system, and save your ire towards MS for things like illegally leveraging their monopoly power.

    5. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by Scott7477 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree with you. The article in ArsTechnica pointed out that at the time of the memo, Microsoft's position in the market was radically different than it is today. MS was a relatively small company compared to the big boys in the enterprise world like IBM and Sun and Novell. The way software was distributed was totally different as well. Given that the Internet was primarily an academic and military system at the time, companies were still sending you boxes of floppies. I recall from graduate school at that time seeing a business plan that contemplating distributing software through vending machines! It seems absurd now, but at the time it wasn't that far out of the ball park. In any case, based on reading the excerpt from the memo, Gates was trying to figure out how best to make money from the business of writing software. Today, the open source community is in the same boat. We want non-restrictive licenses (like MIT's), but also want to put food on the table.

      I don't excuse MS's anti-competitive business practices, and a lot of their frankly dumb decisions over the years. But I can see where Gates has something of a point. To me, since software costs practically nothing to copy, the primary way to make a profit at software is in support. Most general-use software is rather simple to produce these days (see how many different text editors there are). So I don't think most types of software should be patentable.

      --
      "Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
    6. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by kcbrown · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm just pointing out that corporations are things, not beings, and they are a part of a system, and behave as they are supposed to within the system.

      Not really.

      Corporations are supposed to act in the best interests of the society in which they function first and foremost. If that were not the case, then a corporate charter and business license wouldn't be required, now would it?

      The problem is that most people have lost sight of that fact. In exchange for limited liability and effective immortality, corporations are supposed to act with restraint. And in a sane, balanced society, such restraint would be enforced by the revocation of corporate charters in the case of misconduct, just like it was done in the (relatively) distant past.

      People like you have been brainwashed to believe that it's okay for corporations to act in evil ways (if intentionally harming others for personal gain isn't evil, then I don't know what is) because "they're responsible to their shareholders" or some such bullshit.

      But it's not okay. It never has been. Such behaviour is very harmful, and many ills of the world exist because of it. You might say that it's the responsibility of the government to hold corporations accountable for their actions and you would be right about that. But that in no way excuses the behaviour of corporations. That someone might not have been punished for murder doesn't make the act any less wrong.

      People like you need to wake up, and fast, because we're almost out of time. The U.S. is pretty much unrecoverable now but there's still time for the rest of the world. But if corporations aren't held to a much higher standard than we hold them to now, it won't be long before they rule the rest of the world the way they rule the U.S.

      And trust me, that would be a bad thing for just about everyone. The experience with the British East India Company is one of the things that led to the founding of the United States, after all.

      --
      Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
    7. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by mpe · · Score: 2, Informative

      The problem is that most people have lost sight of that fact. In exchange for limited liability and effective immortality, corporations are supposed to act with restraint.

      The term "limited liability" started off with one specific meaning. That was that shareholders' financial liability was limited to the amount of their investment. i.e. if the enterprise failed the worst that could happen is that they would have some worthless pieces of paper, creditors could not persue the "owners" of the business. Nothing to do with the idea of a business not being liable for the consequences of the actions of its executives.

    8. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by mpe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They actually are (at least in the US) legally identical to individuals. That's in the sense that they can commit crimes and get sued or pay taxes.

      Except that corporations don't tend to have their freedoms constrained at the point they are charged with a crime. Not many real people can be "business as usual" whilst awaiting a trial, let alone only only have their lawyers attend the trial. Even if found guilty there is no corporate equivalent of a prison sentence. When it comes to criminal law corporations and individuals are treated (very) differently. Even if the same statute theoretically applies to both situations.

    9. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by Bozdune · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, this is the classic Libertarian argument. The robber barons of the 19th and early 20th century wouldn't have amassed their monopolies had it not been for government regulations that allowed them to do so, blah blah blah.

      Unfortunately for the Libertarians, laissez-faire capitalism is unstable. One company will emerge as the leader; and if it behaves rationally it will ruthlessly eliminate its opponents by out-competing them and out-spending them. Government is often an enabler in this process, but even if it wasn't there at all, the end result would still be the same -- monopoly.

      Should AT&T have been broken up? No? Then are you interested in paying $30 for a long-distance call? Don't worry, it may still happen if the FCC continues to rule in favor of putting AT&T back together again, and in favor of locking everyone else out of the "last mile" wires.

      The answer is not "less" government regulation, but "better" government regulation. Unfortunately, since government is corruptible, it tends to enable monopolists like Microsoft to persist until the abuses become so apparent that even a suitcase full of cash can't keep the politicians in office. Then, finally, they'll act -- but not before.

    10. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by Ciggy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe, but whilst awaiting tral, a person is encarcerated in jail - with their freedoms of movement, action, normal everyday business, etc curtailed, unless bail is paid; whilst corporatons are awaiting trial are they incarcerated, unable to do normal everyday business, unless they post bail - do they even post bail?

      --

      A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
      A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
    11. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't think it was ever intended to shield executives from anything. The company in itself is really at the will and direction of the executives.

      I think the problem lies in the belief that if you own the company you can tell it what to do. This is only the case if your one of the executives. And if that is the case, it does nothing to shield you from your part in whatever crime you and your company were involved in. Unfortunately, Many investors and owners take a hands off approach to a lot of their businesses and when something does happen, some people take this separation as some kind of proof that you were shielded from whatever.

      This, I think is the disconnect people have. I'm trying to think of a craft analogy but I don't think I can put it into a story. I guess the best way to look at it is if someones retirement account invests in my company and my employee has an accident that results in someone getting killed, Should they person who owns stock of my company be held accountable for this if it causes the company to go bankrupt? The stock holders are part owners and you can have shares in an LLC. What if that retirement account is your? Should you be held liable for something you had no control or influence over? I'm not sure these things are thought thru completly.

    12. Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire by Bozdune · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are too many counterexamples to your premise that monopolies will break up naturally on their own. The ADL scandal, for example, shows that large companies, when left alone by regulators, conspire among themselves to ensure market dominance, mutual survival, and high prices.

      IBM's troubles started when they were slapped upside the head by the government's ultimately unsuccessful antitrust lawsuit. You may be too young to remember the bad old days when IBM refused to share specifications on their equipment, refused to interoperate with foreign peripherals, sued everyone who tried, and so on. They were Really Bad Guys. I remember; I lived through it. Now because of SCO and Linux they are suddenly Good Guys; but be careful, because a tiger can't change his stripes.

      However, none of the above impacts your point about government cooperating with industry; certainly that's bad, certainly it contributes to lack of market flexibility, and certainly it needs to stop (although it won't). But government does have a responsibility to step in when anticompetitive behavior becomes extreme, as happened with AT&T. I remember my mom "saving up" for long distance calls -- literally. You really had to think hard before dialing "1". You couldn't buy a phone, except through AT&T, and you had to rent it month by month (by the time you had rented it for years, you had bought it 20 times over). And they had to come out and "install" your phone, and God forbid if they found an "illegal" extension phone (they just shut off your service, period). And so on. It was outrageous. The bastards were swimming in ill-gotten gains, and they deserved to be smashed into paste, as they were.

  2. Sorry but, by Jason+Hood · · Score: 4, Funny

    this patent is only valid in the US and Samoa. Germany has no right to allow any Fat patents.

    --
    Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
    1. Re:Sorry but, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      now what's this? a dig at an "yo filesystem so FAT, it got rejected by germany"? weak. just weak.

    2. Re:Sorry but, by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Funny

      "now what's this? a dig at an "yo filesystem so FAT, it got rejected by germany"? weak. just weak."

      Yo mama's so fat we had to format her with NTFS.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    3. Re:Sorry but, by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yo mama's so fat, SHE killed REISER.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
  3. Hmm.. by SevenHands · · Score: 4, Funny

    Doesn't McDonalds already own this patent in Germany?

  4. Whoa!!! by Bullfish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You have to invent something to patent it! Say it ain't so! An awful lot of companies are going to go into panic over this! Why, it could threaten the entire patent holding industry!!

  5. One way to look by CSHARP123 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    From the second article link - Emphasis mine

    If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then they have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.

    Now that large company is MS and is trying to patent the obvious.

  6. Re:1980 by jimstapleton · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Probably not, they are unlikely to look at patents that haven't expired.

    Sadly most of MS's patents are post 95 by the article (they had around 100 in 95, 1000 in 99 and 6000 now If I remember correctly?)

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    34486853790
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  7. FAT Patent? by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought it was only slightly chubby...

    --
    You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
  8. Re:"FAT" - who cares? by Noryungi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whoa!

    Not so fast! Off the top of my head, there is a lot of stuff that still uses FAT: SD-Card, USB sticks, most of the little thingie you stick into a cell phone, a digital camera, and use in embedded systems. Basically everything that can emulate (and does emulate) a floppy disk And what about real floppy disks themselves?

    FAT has got a lot of problems, but it's convenient, simple to implement, and relatively stable. And most of the systems in use today can read and write to it (Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows, MacOS, you name it), so it is also convenient for quickly transferring data from those small thingamajigs into you main PeeCee.

    So yeah, FAT is here to stay. It does not do a lot, but what it does, it does well. And that's why rejecting the FAT patent in Germany is Good News(tm).

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
  9. Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software? by Scarblac · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not true. Every country has its own rules. Besides those, there's also a European patent court, which isn't actually part of the EU, just a cooperation of European countries. That court officially doesn't allow software patents but does in practice; Germany's patent law is different, I have no idea.

    The "EU patent directive" and the fight over software patents that's covered now and then on /. is about a EU proposal to do away with all this and replace it by a single EU system, and about whether software patents should be part of that.

    This is "Slashdot knowledge", I have no actual knowledge of law, so...

    --
    I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
  10. Re:"FAT" - who cares? by fjf33 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not really, FAT is still critical for small devices like memory sticks, flash, etc where the fact that FAT is lightweight make a significant difference. The moment you encumber it with patents, then devices like cameras, mp3 players, etc would have to potentially pay microsoft royalties.

  11. This is great... fta by micromuncher · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FTA "[Prevents company from] lay claim to basic computing procedures that in the final analysis are trivial."

    And, FAT is a trivial format, (as are Apple DOS 16, ProDOS, CODOS, and other ancient formats) but FAT has the caveat it is commonly used today in devices such as digital cameras (So pfffft on the person who said its not used.)

    I completely agree with the german PO that a patent has to be on something innovative and inventive. Every time I see a patent for a double-linked list or radix sort I get the shivers.

    --
    /\/\icro/\/\uncher
  12. I have to believe ... by LaughingCoder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... that this is a don't care for MS. FAT is ubiquitous - thumbdrives use it, digital cameras use it, mp3 players use it. In fact it's hard to find a piece of solid state media that doesn't come pre-formatted with FAT. Because of that, I guess I was always under the impression FAT was in the public domain; it really surprised me to see there was a patent at all. Does anyone out there know if MS collects royalties or license fees from this patent?

    --
    The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    1. Re:I have to believe ... by herve_masson · · Score: 2, Informative

      really surprised me to see there was a patent at all

      You must be new here. The last link is the reason why Germany likely felt necessary to cleanup that particular junk patent. I don't think they are in a process to cleanup the whole insane system anytime soon :) I wonder why they have to though, knowing that EU don't recognize such patent (yet).

  13. FAT patent by rongage · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You guys know how Microsoft folk like to toss about that Linux violates Microsoft's patents...

    You guys know how "we" like to shout out "put up or shut up"...

    Opportunity is right in front of our noses - right now!

    Whether we think the patent is valid or not is irrelevent - it's been held as valid by the USPTO. The existance of a patent is considered prima facie evidence of validity in a court of law. It takes LOTS of money and time to get a patent declared invalid in court. LOTS of money - a million dollars would not be unusual for legal costs in a patent fight. Unless YOU have the money to put up for the fight, the battle is already lost here.

    Microsoft has a valid patent on FAT (or more specifically FAT32). Linux implements FAT and FAT32. Unless someone has a signed document from Microsoft stating that Linux has a royalty-free license to use the patented technology, we are violating the patent - period.

    Time to get coding - people talk about "coding around" a patent issue should one be found. Well, one has been laid directly at our feet. Time to get coding...

    --
    Ron Gage - Westland, MI
    1. Re:FAT patent by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, what Microsoft holds the a (purportedly valid) patent on isn't FAT or FAT32. It's on the particular algorithm for mapping long filenames into an 8.3 format and (I think) storing the long filename where it can be found. What the German court found was that a) the idea of doing such a mapping isn't original enough to be potentially patentable, and b) even if it was, the Rock Ridge extensions to the ISO-9660 filesystem (specifically the parts that allow mapping of Unix long filenames to the 8.3 upper-case-only native 9660 names) are similar enough to be prior art and invalidate MS's patent (as it would be simply an obvious extension of that prior art).

  14. FAT is old by gr8_phk · · Score: 5, Informative

    FAT itself was documented in 1983 (or earlier?) in Byte magazine. It can not be and is not patented today as I understand it. My understanding is that MS patented the long filename feature that came along later. Lets not confuse basic FAT functionality with long file names. It's also more interesting to call it a long filename patent, as it sounds even dumber than a FAT patent.

  15. Surprised they didn't come up with an alternative by 91degrees · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't this the patent on the hack that allows Windows 95 file systems to be used in MSDOS? It's a hack for back compatibility for a system that's completely obselete. And I'm not sure where its used. All cameras I've used use MSDOS 8.3 filenames. Mayeba few portable devices use FAT on flash, and maybe flash relies on this method or something ut I'd have thought this would have been thought of before. Why didn't the standards organisations come up with a better, free filesystem for USB filesystem devices or for flash or something? FAT is cheap and nasty and, as I mentioned earlier, long filename support is a hack.

  16. Microsoft's Full Patent List [Browsable] by RembrandtX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just in case anyone was interested, here is a full list of Microsoft's Issued Patents [Current as of a week or two ago].
    Its hosted at a free patent searching tool, so don't blame me if their servers melt. :)

    Microsoft's Patents

    --

    --Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
  17. Re:Real Prior Art by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No. The concepts behind FAT way predate CP/M. My guess is IBM probably developed most it. They did invent the floppy disk and they had to have some kind of format. CP/M used the 8" Floppy standard that IBM developed so I would guess it was IBM.

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  18. Re:Software patents by Pyrroc · · Score: 2, Informative

    That would violate copyright.

    --
    "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."