Microsoft Gets Back Its FAT Patent In Germany

Posted by kdawson on Friday April 23, 2010 @05:18AM from the break-out-the-fatback-recipes dept.

Dj writes to let us know that Microsoft has regained its FAT patent in Germany. (We discussed it three years ago when the German Federal Patent Tribunal ruled that Microsoft's patent on the FAT file system, with short and long names, was not enforceable.) "The [German] appeal court's decision brings it into line with the US patent office's assessment of the FAT patent. In early 2006, after lengthy deliberations, the latter confirmed the rights to protection conferred by [US] patent number 5,579,517, claiming that the development was new and inventive."

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Stupid Headline by fm6 · 2010-04-23 05:39 · Score: 5, Informative

The patent is not for the FAT filesystem itself. The patent is for the kludge that allows FAT to support both long filenames and 8.3 filenames.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_filename