Posted on 10/06/2005 8:45:52 AM PDT by ShadowAce
The U.S. Patent Office has rejected two Microsoft patents over the FAT file format, but the software maker said Wednesday that it's not ready to give up its battle to protect its widely used method for storing data.
The patent office delivered its ruling late last month but made it public this week. With one of the patents, the decision is what's considered a final rejection, while with another it's considered nonfinal. In both cases, Microsoft has the ability to pursue its claims further.
The rejections come after a re-examination of the patents was sought by the Public Patent Foundation, which argued that they were invalid because there was "prior art," that is, evidence that others had done similar work before Microsoft's patent application. A U.S. Patent Office examiner issued a preliminary rejection of one Microsoft patent in September 2004.
Though developed for Windows, the FAT format has become a common means of storing files on all manner of computers, as well as on removable flash memory cards used in digital cameras and other devices. It is also used by the open-source Samba software that lets Linux and Unix computers exchange data with Windows computers, and by Linux itself to read and write files on Windows hard drives.
There has been concern that if the FAT patents are upheld, Microsoft may claim that Linux infringes on Microsoft technology and will seek a royalty. Any monetary compensation could threaten the operating system, which under General Public License (GPL) terms may not be distributed if it contains patented technology that requires royalty payments.
A Microsoft representative said Wednesday that the company considers the latest rejections somewhat of a victory because the examiners have rejected the prior-art claims. Microsoft said the latest rejections are centered on how the inventor of the patents is listed.
"None of the prior art submitted by the Public Patent Foundation stood up under examination," Microsoft Director of Business Development David Kaefer said in a statement. "The issues that have come up in these re-examinations have nothing to do with (non-Microsoft) prior art. Instead, the issues involve a question over whom--at Microsoft--should be properly listed as an inventor."
A Public Patent Foundation representative was not immediately available for comment.
Microsoft announced plans to license the FAT format in December 2003, as part of a stepped-up intellectual-property licensing push. It announced at the time that flash memory seller Lexar Media was taking a license for its FAT format technology.
And I'm an MS-Drone. I can only imagine how funny that is to the Linux Brigade!
"Oh come on, let's not be too dramatic."
Don't be a turd. Consider the context when you see the words. That comment is something a friggin' idiot PC liberal would make.
Microsoft is the most profitable corporation with profits typically 50% of revenues. Microsoft has tens of billions saved up in cash reserves that it doesn't know what to with.
Thus it legal departments efforts to steal credit from others and patent the FAT file system
take a joke drama queen.
Stealing from another company and then suing them out of business is evil.
Giving away your source code to Communist China is evil.
This hokum is just another iteration of Microsoft's anti-capitalist agenda.
Claim: The song "Happy Birthday to You" is protected by copyright.
Status: True.
From Snopes
You may have a point. As Dylan said ... "when you have a lot of knives and forks lying around you just have to cut something".
Or maybe they're just bored. =)
Would creating an Operating System and giving it away for free to communist countries also count as being evil?
"take a joke drama queen."
Go "joke" yourself. Turd.
Well at least you had the courtesy to capitalize "turd". Thanks!
Or M$ has the legal department engage in such nonsense to keep them in fighting condition for the real stuff. Bill's father is a big shot lawyer. Microsoft has alway believed in using the law (and Microsoft lawyers) as an integral part of doing business.
they have developed nothing particularly innovative except for their EULA, and I find it particularly ironic that they steal public domain software like crazy, usually modified by M$ in a way that makes it both insecure and non-standard, and typically less useful than the original.
want a huge example? how about M$ ripping off kerberos as their authentication scheme for active directory... what a lousy piece of crap they created out of that
microsoft deserves to go out of business not because they are a huge business, but because they give innovative huge businesses and capitalism a bad name.
i would have said exactly the same about standard oil of new jersey back in the days of rockefeller...
Only if they only gave it away to communist countries.
I can't disagree with you on that point. Guess they are following in the grand tradition set forth by Ford, GM, Chrysler, Walmart, Upjohn, Kmart, Intel, HP, et al.
It's hard to come up with a single piece of technology that Microsoft created that could be considered "innovative."
Now, their marketing and legal manuvering has been first rate. Usually you have to investigate a Kennedy to see the law being so completely bent out of shape.
nah you aren't a drone. You at least think before you post.
GE and B2000 are drones.
And MS does not sell their OS in China, they only give it away for free?
And their legal skills don't really mean anything, considering they are a software company.
Now, if they'd created something unique...er...something technically unique, there would be a slight change that I wouldn't cringe every time they unveil another "great idea."
Awww man, now I gotta give back the "MS-Drone" badge they give you at the graduation ceremony.
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