PUBPAT Challenges Microsoft's FAT Patent 396
An anonymous reader writes "The Public Patent Foundation filed a formal request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office today to revoke Microsoft Corporation's patent on the FAT File System, touted by Microsoft as being 'the ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers, and, since the advent of inexpensive, removable flash memory, also between digital devices.' In its filing, PUBPAT submitted previously unseen prior art showing the patent, which issued in November 1996 and is not otherwise due to expire until 2013, was obvious and, as such, should have never been granted."
About time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they were standards before they were patented, then yeah - I would say that's grounds for challenging them.
If they were a stealth patent on an idea that was common knowledge at the time (and I'm thinking especially of things that just weren't practical due to lack of CPU power that are blindingly obvious as well) then yeah, definitely.
Anyway, all the devil's advocates are on loan to SCO at the moment, raking in megabucks from the warchest.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, the request for reexamination is based partly on what Microsoft might do, and has made no attempt to do. Their assertions are that in light of other patents the specific combination of techniques would have been obvious. This strikes me as less than genuine because of how patents are done, particularly in this day in age. If the combination of ideas was so obvious, why didn't the last of the submitted prior art patent it, since they're so skilled they can claim worthy patents when there is significant pressure to claim everything thing concievable at the time of the filing?
But more importantly; in the case of the invention of polyamides, with their logic the claimed invention of one precludes others from claiming the invention of others of similar structure. In light of Nylon, Kevlar is obvious.
This of course is not what happened.
I'm not saying that shouldn't have happened. It's an interesting demand to make of would be inventors, and certainly a considerable demand to make of the patent office. (I guess we know that when they play Stars! 2 they always click the bleeding edge technology box.) But the fact that their line of reasoning isn't followed, really at all, and has many billions, possibly trillions, of dollars in property bet against it doesn't bode well I would think.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Funny)
I.e. they're patenting a work around for a stupid shortcoming, for which the only reason nobody else was doing it was that they designed their systems to be more flexible in the first place?
1) design inflexible system
2) patent bandaid
3) profit
I think I've discovered the underpants gnomes' secret business model - patent bandaids. Unfortunately the ubiquitous triple questionmark logo is prior art.
*sigh*
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
I.e. they're patenting a work around for a stupid shortcoming, for which the only reason nobody else was doing it was that they designed their systems to be more flexible in the first place?
FAT was originally designed in the 1980's, and although long filenames might've been considered, hardware limitations may have made them infeasible at the time. Also, FAT wasn't initially designed by Microsoft; the first version was released with QDOS [wikipedia.org].
Saying FAT sucks is like saying Minix (the file system) sucks. They're both old, and better file systems supercede them. The only problem is that Microsoft decided to use FAT and extended it for Windows 9x, but that's somewhat understandable from a compatibility standpoint.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
No, it was not a hardware limitation, just as the Cobol Y2k problem was not a hardware limitation. Just a stupid design.
Re:About time... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with you, but there are probably things that we aren't considering. When designing a circuit/processor/motherboard/whatever for both speed and efficiency, you need to set design paramaters that are reasonable for the motherboard's percieved lifetime (generally 2-3 years I would guess). If you make a motherboard with today's technology that supports 500GB of RAM, there are going to have to be significant tradeoffs with speed and other things for that support. It is hard to design hardware that is so open ended.
Although it would be nice, I don't think it's practical/cost-efficient.
Re:About time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Limiting filenames to 8.3 is just laziness. Even worse: all filenames used those 11 bytes, even if they didn't need them: how's that for efficiency?
The best option would be to allow the user filenames of any length, and telling him: hey, you can use 255 characters for a name, but remember it costs disk space.
This would require a bit of programming from the side of Microsoft. They didn't do that. They didn't need to, because they sold someone else's creation. And that was, as you mention, QDOS, which isn't named for nothing "Quick & Dirty Operating System". 8.3 is the quick way, not the right way.
And it took Microsoft only twenty years to make it right...
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the combination of ideas was so obvious, why didn't the last of the submitted prior art patent it, since they're so skilled they can claim worthy patents when there is significant pressure to claim everything thing concievable at the time of the filing?
Perhaps they didn't patent it because it *was* obvious. The idea that every idea or hack or workaround or anything else that pops into someone's head should be patented is just ridiculous. It doesn't matter if you did something first that nobody else has done. Perhaps nobody else needed to do it. That doesn't make it patent-worthy. Hell, it's getting so that you can't do a damn thing without major financial backing just to try to figure out if you're violating someone, somewhere's, patent. Even if you're not, you'll still need the financial backing to fight off the inevitable lawsuits from all the vague and overbroad patent holders out there that are trying to hustle anyone that tries to create anything these days.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
The good and bad of that, I'll leave to wiser people that myself to discuss, but that is the status quo. And that is exactly what PUBPAT is challenging. If they can beat Microsoft with that argument, all the 'little' inventions can/will get overturned too. And I assure you that after many years, PUBPAT will probably be one of the very exceptional David's on a field of Goliaths.
It's a huge change, and in the long run I would predict it would chill innovation in the US, lead to more draconian NDAs & Non-Compete agreements, aid the big guys in consoladating IP to be used against the market more than each other, encourage more secrecy, less patenting, more espionage, and possibly give rise to a preference to patent inventions in other countries. If I had played a lot more Elevator Action, I might see this as a positive development.
Maybe the small inventions like this lead to the larger more important inventions and abstractions. I don't know. Maybe they get brighter less flexible more ambitions people thinking about the true solutions to succeed the collections of hacks. And the publication and protection of those inadaquate hacks, as well as the promissed protection for the imagined invention are a necessary step to the launching pad. Maybe no one does. Maybe the idea of the perfect solution to the mess is an illusion, and we've just got to find the mess that's the best. Maybe we've already found it marveling at the green-ness of grass we might have had.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a huge change, and in the long run I would predict it would chill innovation in the US, lead to more draconian NDAs & Non-Compete agreements, aid the big guys in consoladating IP to be used against the market more than each other, encourage more secrecy, less patenting, more espionage, and possibly give rise to a preference to patent inventions in other countries. If I had played a lot more Elevator Action, I might see this as a positive development.
:)
Well, the way things are now, if you're not a big corp, you can't afford to innovate in many areas. You have nothing to bargain with (no patent portfolio to cross-license), so the big boys can simply trample you with lawsuits if you seem like even a minor threat to them. There are such a huge number of vague, broad, and obvious patents that they can probably find a million and one things that are somewhat similar to some aspect of your invention or process. So yeah, maybe your scenario actually would be an improvement. But then again, I played a lot of Elevator Action, so that may have warped my view
Re:About time... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
yup just like software piracy has cause a almost stoppage in new software, and music trading has decimated the record industry...
In fact, I remember hearing that someone using that same argument against the printing press....
and Argh said the same thing to Ogg about that damned wheel of his... it will destroy the dragging industry in the village...
If your company can not adjust to change then you deserve to be put out of business when a minor change like this comes along.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
Their specific implementation however might not be challengable, seeing as how they DID invent it. There's a chance however since IIRC patent law gives you only 1 year after public introduction to patent said invention or you lose the right to patent it. The problem then becomes a game of dates and when it was "public" (do wide spread betas count? It WAS indevelopment for 4 years), and when did they submit the patent.
Blind loyality (Score:5, Insightful)
How can a workaround/extension of a filesystem to implement a feature that was in other filesystems for decades be not obvious? Despite what this AC might think, long filenames weren't invented by Microsoft.
Playing catch-up with the competition and implementing their features is the most obvious thing you can do.
This blind Microsoft loyality is really amazing. I don't say that Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to get ideas from others, everybody does it - but getting a patent for an extension for a feature the competition had decades before? That's just ridiculous.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Interesting)
If it becomes a standard, is it in society's interest to let the patent last so long?
Re:About time... (Score:4, Insightful)
i was hoping people would stop using FAT because of the patent and use UFS or some kind of journaling flash filesystem. If they just defined it as part of the standard when they defined a flash interface (or the next USB revision?) then maybe microsoft's hand could be forced. Infact I think MS would be for a more stable and reliable filesystem (because even they admit that FAT isn't very good by not recommending using it when NT got NTFS)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:About time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not neccessarily. MSFT would have its patent rights intact if, for example, anyone seeing that code (I assume you mean sourcecode and not binaries) had a click-through or better confidentiality agreement. More importantly, though, as long as MSFT ju
Re:About time... (Score:4, Informative)
Was it a public beta or was it not? If you publicly disclose that you have a black box that turns a fish into chicken (and with the way DNA research is going, don't laugh at it) publicly, it is your responsibility to patent it.
Just because nobody may not know the workings of the black box does not make it any less your responsibility to patent it. Because unless the patent examiner grants you the patent and hence the monopoly on it you don't have exclusive rights to it.
So, if you publish that you have a machine (or let the public use it, like in a beta) that turns a fish into chickens, you have a year to file tha patent on it. After that year, your exclusive rights to the secret box that turns fish into chickens evaporates. Anybody can use the idea and make a box that does the same thing.
But that was not what is at argument here. What is being challenged here is that the FAT file system is not really a "novel" or "unique" idea in the first place, but rather obvious for those who are familiar with the technology.
The three qualifications for a patent are usefulness, novelty, and it has to be nonobviuos [intellectual.com]
As the article states, and why this will be important in the future, the patent office granted a patent to something that was obvious.
The problem is not patents themselves (and I would argue that software patents are not entirely bad if held to the original standards that they were supposed to be under), but that the patent examiner will slap a patent on anything that walks through the door.
For one reason or another the patent office is broken (not enough money), with the attitude that rather than themselves having to put a critical eye torward something that may be obvious, they decide to not do this and let a judge later sort it out.
Which is wrong, and just another example why our government is broken in more ways than one.
Admittedly, it costs a lot of money to hire an examiner that is familiar with often arcane (but important) technologies. But it does not let the patent office off the hook.
What we have is people who are getting a software patent equivalent to a patent on breathing air.
The business method patents (this kind of patent is worse than software, as it has no technology behind it) come to mind, like the "ecommerce" one.
Some would argue that software patents should never have been granted because it is a "slippery slope". I think they are right. The original software patents were granted to machines that controlled the vulcanization of rubber (novel and nonobvious) and another that read data off seisometers.
We have slid from that all the way down to the "one click" patent to buy something.
Anyway, this is an important fight that needs to be won.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obvously, everyone here thinks that its the job of the USPTO to examine patent applications, and investigate whether they are "novel, feasible, and non-obvious". This ceased to be the case long ago: Their job is to earn money. No one has ever successfully sued them for granting patents on trivia. This has created a loophole where the govt can make money by granting a patent to almost anything submitted, in return for a fee.
Even a case where the USPTO is found liable for gross failure of duty, and fined an amount commensuate with its takings, would not stop this stupidness - just because someone has been able to argue that one instance is trivia does not create a precedent for arguing that something else is trivia. Even if M$ lose this case, it will have no impact whatever on the real problem - that the USPTO exists as a profit centre for the government, and not as a service to the US tax payer.
Sadly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you need to solve a goddamn problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Because you need to solve a goddamn problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do they do this? It's not really to make a better shave like they say. It's so that once they've spent millions of dollars pushing a particular product, someone else can't come out with "Sensor-compatible" heads to take away their massive profits.
I understand that companies need to protect themselves, but it's one thing when they make something different that's better, and quite another when they've made something that's different and just better marketed. This sort of patent activity is a waste of time and an abuse of the system which makes it more difficult for legitimate inventions to be properly considered.
OK, I'm done with my little soapbox rant. It's just that I know some people who are small inventors and have a few patents having to do with radiation detectors, and I've seen the work that he's gone through to protect his inventions, and it makes me sick to think that some huge company with a big IP law department can force through some ridiculous patent while it takes a little guy years to get the final paperwork on truly innovative concepts.
Sigh.
Re:Because you need to solve a goddamn problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably bogus patents up the wazoo on that too.
(Patents aren't going to mean much anyway once anyone can do desktop manufacturing for next to nothing.)
--
Re:Because you need to solve a goddamn problem (Score:3, Funny)
I think that's the whole point (Score:5, Interesting)
However, too many patents means that when joe inventor makes something, evil corporation sues him for violating patent 284958390*pi^12, "Use of energy to propell machine," and steals his work anyway, making millions of dollars while give the original invetor squat.
Re:I think that's the whole point (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of patents are filed today by megacorporations, as a weapon against competition, and many of those patents are trivial extensions of known principles and ideas.
Re:I think that's the whole point (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, it probably says a lot that a multi-millionaire simply flys below the radar of "rich folks" these days. Granted, there are lots of people who are vastly more wealthy for other reasons, and certainly there is more money being made off patents by medium and big companies -- but that doesn't mean individual examples are particularly rare.
Re:I think that's the whole point (Score:4, Informative)
Unlike copyright where MPAA, RIAA and other SIGs have purchased legislative insurance, there are not ( to my knowledge) any criminal penalties for patent infringement.
Re:I think that's the whole point (Score:5, Interesting)
Which prompts the question: is the patent holder obliged to license his patent to anyone that asks, or can he grant licenses to some applicants and not to others??
Re:Sadly... (Score:5, Interesting)
Um - because if it really is a novel invention worthy of patent protection then all the later judges are going to throw it out of court immediately based on the previous decision, and if you're a scum sucking pond scum who's standing on the shoulders of the giants before you and setting up a toll gate to stop those who really are innovating then you bloody well deserve what you get.
The concept of intellectual property was never designed to protect the sort of arsewipe who patents every piece of common knowledge they can slip under the noses of the patent office and makes a business out of milking their "valuable IP portfolio". If you're in the business of buying other people's ideas for the purpose of extorting money from people building the future on top of them, then I say good riddance to you - our current technology is built on the ideas of our predecessors, and who are we to stop our successors from learning from us?
Re:Sadly... (Score:4, Funny)
rich?
Re:Sadly... (Score:5, Insightful)
And truly innovative people invent because they want to make the world a better place. If they make money off it, that's gravy, not the motivating force. It's the suits, who have never had an original thought in their lives, who go to court to try to squeeze a few more bucks out of the fruits of the labor of the people with brains.
Re:Sadly... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sadly... (Score:3, Informative)
Second, If it wasn't a bogus patent being weilded for compeitive advantage, no one would have requested a re-examination.
Re:Sadly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as an aside, my handle is composer777, and yes, I have another degree in music. Much the same thing happens in music. Musicians practice and play because they love what they do. They get really good, then megacorp comes along, picks and chooses who they want, makes a bundle off the hard work of that musician, and tosses them away. If you ask them why they are so greedy, they'll tell you because it's the only way to motivate people to create good music. Bullshit, the best musicians would play no matter what they are getting paid. They charge $20 for a CD because they know morons like you are dumb enough to buy into their propaganda.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:About time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Scary: That's patent worthy.
Scarier: There were three prior patents covering the technique...
Re:About time... (Score:3, Funny)
So you're saying MS grew FAT on other people's work?
Re:About time... (Score:4, Informative)
No.
"FAT" systems store the allocation table as a singly linked list on disc. Two copies, in case one gets mangled (but they are adjacent, which is not good). The directory is a list of names, and starting indexes into the allocation table. This makes random access bad, because you have to keep traversing the singly linked list to find blocks. (DOS of early vintage).
CP/M also uses an allocation table, but it is not stored on disk. Instead, a file is broken into "extents". Each extent has a directory entry, and a fixed number of pointers to disk clusters. A single file will have more than one directory entry, if it contains multiple extents.
CP/M built the allocation map for the disc when the disc is "mounted" (used the first time). It does this by reading the directory, and marking blocks that are in use by files.
With FAT, you can have "cross linked" files. The singly linked lists representing the data blocks point into each other. With CP/M you can have multiple directory entries refer to the same data blocks as well. CP/M allows "sparse" files, which FAT doesn't. CP/M has better random access (two levels of index), although many programs pre-built access lists for DOS to improve random file performance (I did that for one application).
CP/M limited file names to emulate PDP-10, FAT limited file names to emulate CP/M -- it's a push.
And, finally, the patent is NOT on FAT, it is on the long file name extensions introduced with Windows 95.
A "FAT" system was in place with Microsoft Disc Basic (AFAIR), Zilog also used a singly linked list block map in their Z80 development platform. I am sure that there is plenty more "prior art" for FAT.
The idea of stored a hash long name into a fixed length directory in multiple pieces, using keys and checksums -- that is what is being contested.
Ratboy
Re:Devils advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait a second... Assume Data Structures A and B (c-style pseudo code):And take Operating Systems X and Y, where Y is implemented from scratch to work similar to X. Please take into account that the source tree of Y currently is over 200 MB (2.6.5-mm1, unpacked).
Do you seriously want to claim that the difference between A and B is anywhere close to the difference between X and Y?
IMO that's a bit like telling me that accidentially inhaling (and thereby killing) a fly in my sleep is pretty similar to the holocaust. Or claiming that a single molecule of Water is pretty similar to the atlantic ocean. Or claiming that the "word" "GATC" is pretty similar to all of mankind.
I don't know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really hate to sound like a troll (and I left out any "???" step), but...
1. Patent random, generic idea
2. Sit on patent
3. Sue people
4. Profit!
It seems to me to be a trend all too often in the world today, particularly with software. Heh, I wonder what the world would be like if the first caveman to make fire had patented the process of creating friction by rubbing two sticks together.
In regards to this context, I do not see why Microsoft should hold any power with this patent, seeing as how they sat around and let people adopt the format as a de facto standard. It's not like there is any secret to it, and I see it as just another plan of theirs to make people dependent on them and then extort them. The first hit is always free, huh?
Re:I don't know... (Score:4, Interesting)
You CANNOT patent an idea. You can only patent the IMPLEMENTATION of an idea. You're only looking at the title of the patent, which will be something generic like "A method for doing X". That's only to make them easy to search, the thing that matters is the text of the patent. In this case, MS doesn't have a patent on the idea of a filesystem, they have a patent on one specific filesystem, FAT. That's all.
Patent discussions on Slashdot at meaningless, because 99% of the Slashbots think that the title of a patent is the entirety of the patent.
They request all kinds of Patent re-examinations.. (Score:4, Interesting)
They have several interesting projects on patent re-examination, commentary on the patent process, etc.
I've never heard of the Publlic Patent Foundation (Score:4, Interesting)
Go get 'em!
.
In other News... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently saw a thread here on
We're paying BIG BUCKS for litigation attorneys in a DEFENSIVE role in protecting Open-Source / Free IP; why not take an offensive stance? The EFF should partition a portion of it's income (or otherwise hire some IP attorneys) for the purpose of protecting free IP.
Organizations CAN obtain patents in the same way that Corporations can. As such, we should FIRST push innovation through a valid legal representative (the EFF comes to mind), and ask that they help Patent or otherwise "secure" the Intellectual Property. When the patents are granted, it will provide the open-source community with OFFENSIVE rights against companies like MSFT, et al.
Why should we sit back and play "catch up" with the great industry marketers and non-innovators? We need to organize, re-group, appropriate resources and act like an adult - not a group of children chanting about things we believe in but aren't willing to back up.
I know it might sound counter-intuitive to not get coolness-points by having your idea/project "slashdotted", but ultimately I think it will help the greater good to have our IP reviewed by a legit IP attorney (represented by the EFF or other org that is in our best interests) before posting it publicly (and INVALIDATING OUR VERY OWN Intellectual Property by demonstrating PRIOR ART).
Why do we continue to post great ideas publicly and not preserve the rights to those ideas?
Why do we continue to bitch about how we're getting FSCK'ed by the big corporations?
I'll tell you why - it's because WE (the innovators) are giving our Ideas and Intellectual Property to the big corporations. We're handing it over to them on a silver platter. A perfect example can be found with the TCP/IP stack that IS Microsoft Windows 95-XP... That code is undeniably *BSD CODE!
While I see no problems with the BSD licenses, I do see a problem when a company like MSFT that has the resources to buy a massive amount of Patents and the Open-Source community sits back and waits for the fallout.
Do you guys not see the big picture? They can't beat us in the marketplace. They CAN beat us using legislation / regulation / lobbying / etc.
Here's the bottom line:
IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN FREE/OPEN SOURCE - WE HAVE TO BE PRO-ACTIVE - _NOT_ RE-ACTIVE.
Software Patents suck - but they are the new reality. We need to either beat them or join them.
Since WE'RE the origination point of the vast majority of thier "innovation", I say we beat them at their own game.
Re:In other News... (Score:4, Insightful)
You claim that Microsoft keeps stealing our ideas, that if they didn't have their patents, but we had patents, we'd win in the marketplace. Or something like that. It's not really clear. But allow me to refute that anyway. Look at GNOME. Look at Mono. Look at KDE. Now look at Microsoft Windows. Who is innovating, again? Who is copying who? And don't give me that crap about the BSD TCP/IP stack. Whether or not Microsoft "stole it," I'd hardly say that the TCP/IP stack is the "vast majority of [Microsoft's] 'innovation'". Whether or not you like their products, you'd have to be foolish to claim that all their good ideas came from open source software.
It sounds like what you're calling for is a GPL for patents. I'm not sure how you'd word it. You can't sell products using this patent unless you release the source code under the GPL? Something like that? Get a clue. Not everyone likes the GPL. BSD folk will want to release code using your patents. Mozilla will want to include your new algorithms and whatnot. People such as myself will want to put code using your patents in the public domain. Oh, but too bad. We should extend the GPL virus.
And if you meant that instead we should licence the patent to anyone, what's the point of paying the fees? You might as well just publish your software and not worry about paperwork. You'll have established prior art for the future by doing so. After all, patents are relatively easy to knock down with obvious prior art. It's the "obvious" part that's tough to claim.
But let's say that we still think patents will help the open source community. Let's say that we manage to come up with some innovative idea and we patent it. Let's say Microsoft really wants/needs this technology. What will we gain? Microsoft has the funds to buy us off fairly easily. They also have the funds to get the patent invalidated without much hassle. But the small business software writer does not. He just can't use our technology. So he suffers, and Microsoft wins the day again. Who have we helped, again?
No, patents for open source ideas is a horrible idea. It would merely make writing software more difficult for everyone, and especially for non-GPL fans. It would delay the development of open source software, hurting one of the key benefits of open source -- fast turnaround and constant development. And in the end, it would solve nothing.
How did your post get a +5?
Amen, brother! (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, I suggested something very similar less than a week ago [slashdot.org].
I even mailed around an initiative based on this idea to a couple of prominent people in the Open-Source/Free-Software world.
I received a response from Richard Stallman.
He mentioned having considered something like a defensive patent foundation before, to come to the conclusion that it would cost [b]a lot of money[/b] to gain patents, and even more money to enforce them.
Still, I am convined that if enough people would be to join such a foundation, we would still have enough clout to make a difference.
If, like me, you're serious about such an initiative, then please contact me at buison01@REMOVEALLTHECAPITALLETTERSie.hva.nl
Re:In other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Patenting things just makes lawyers richer. The best way to fight patents is to publish your ideas and make sure that prior art is well established.
Correct me if i'm wrong .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely everyone has to realise that patent officers can't be geniuses in their respective fields, because the genuieses are off inventing and discovering things.
Hence the onus should be on making it easy to revoke granted patents the minute prior art is discovered. Otherwise it could take patent officers years to validate each patent.
Re:Correct me if i'm wrong .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there was this guy named Einstein, ever heard of him?
Seriously, no, most patent examiners aren't geniuses, nor should they need to be. They should definitely be technically competent, though. It occurs to me that with all the out-of-work techies, and the flood of tech patents coming through (many of which should never be granted) there's a real opportunity here
And the system that gives the patent applicant the responsibility for the search for prior art seems absurd to me. Who the hell is going to put effort into finding something that will invaildate his own application?
Obligatory Family Guy Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Well, there was this guy named Einstein, ever heard of him? ;)
Einstein: What is it you would like to patent? ... *ruffles through the pages, knocks Smith unconscious, and runs off with the papers*
Smith: I call it Smith's Theory of Relativity.
Einstein:
Re:Correct me if i'm wrong .. (Score:5, Insightful)
But doesn't this just validate that the patent system albeit a little broken generally works.
If giving a patent to anyone for anything that sounds vaguely technical and then waiting for the real inventor to come and prove himself, in spite of the fact that there are many people on the government's payroll with the job title of "patent examiner", is a system that "generally works", then I'd like to know what qualifies as "broken".
heh (Score:4, Insightful)
Like really... I mean, parts of the human genome are "obvious" and therefore shouldn't be patented.... no wait...
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Funny)
It can't be a MS format, otherwise all my Microsoft-approved CDs from 10+ years ago wouldn't work in my new Microsoft CD-ROM drive with my Microsoft operating system.
Donate! (Score:5, Informative)
Hopefully more to come! (Score:4, Insightful)
The patent process has become a hindrance to software development in many cases and it should definitely be much harder to get patent of this kind. Hopefully more patents in the U.S. and worldwide get challenged and discarded.
new != original (Score:3, Interesting)
Erghh (Score:4, Funny)
IIRC it's all about NTFS these days and FAT is mainly used for dual-boot linux situations or where you need backward compatabilty. So if correct, this dispute shouldn't be monumental, but still interesting. Good to see some one's out there trying to kill off as many bogus patents as possible, though I'm sure no one envies that job.
Also I'm still surprised no ones show up with archaeological evidence showing that Windows was first used in earthen hovels eons ago.
Re:Erghh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Erghh (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe for PC OSes, but have you used a CF or SD card in a digital camera? Or a memory stick? or any other small portable data container? They all use FAT32 or some related FS. The inneficeincies of teh format don't really apply to the media like that.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Bless PUBPAT (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been quite frustrating to see companies not bother to take these steps. Corporations with significant IP portfolios tend to let it slide knowing that they can just exchange usage of their own silly patent rights if there was ever friction. In the end only the new players (aka innovators!) are victims.
Open source patent office? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Open source patent office? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's how it works.
You discover something. To let everyone know about it, you write a paper, and you send it off to a journal. That Journal has other experts in the field read what you've done. If they like it, they tell everyone else about it by printing it up in this little book. If they don't, they tell you to a) revise it, or b) go away.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure thats what you're looking for.
Re:Open source patent office? (Score:5, Interesting)
Software patents(and the dreaded algorithm patent sure to come out someday if the trend doesn't stop) further blur the distinction.
*steps on soapbox*
now it appears to me that part of the problem with patents and copyright is that the public instinctively associate them with the inventor/discoverer/original author, and we're fine with them, until such rights are sold then we become not so fine with it. For one, it's a lot simpler/more instinctive to sort out who disovered something, if it's an individual making the discovery, not a corporation. In that same line of thought, what happens when those rights are transferred, and for instance, how to get the original author to unlearn what he sold, gets a lo more confusing.
Trademarks, as a rule are purely corporate/marketing concepts and have far less contestation going on... They also have to be defended constantly...
Copyrights are especially problematic, as copyright ownership gets regularly extended for corporations (technically, you could even view the legatees of an author as a corporation, THEY DIDN'T WRITE THE BOOK) to protect little mouses, and such... Yet the author in many cases is long dead... before the first lawyer gets paid... (Not that I object to heirs of authors and such to benefit from the work of their forebears... I do however insist on the fact that by that point, the original intent of copyright: to encourage the author to produce more work, because his rights are protected, will take a lot of doing to respect: he's dead, he won't write that many books anymore...
You might say part of the problem is that the public recognizes a right to a discoverer/author as an individual, for a limited duration, but it becomes a lot less instinctive when those are transferred. Perhaps making them non-transferrable would keep the legislation on this topic, at least understandable by someone without a major in minor in intellectual property...
Re:Open source patent office? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Open source patent office? (Score:4, Interesting)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Anyway, I'll try to come up with a "open source" patent system that addresses your concerns:
1. Anyone can submit a patent. The patent is publicly available immediately. The patent is assumed to be valid (no initial review).
2. Anyone can contest a patent by submitting prior art (or bringing up another weakness in the patent application). The original submitter(s) have a choice: admit the prior art (which invalidates the patent) or argue the point. If they argue, the disagreement goes to a patent examiner. The loser pays for the patent examiner's time.
3. Normal legal appeals apply.
This system should actually be cheaper than the current system. The patent examiner is no longer expected to look for prior art. Instead, it will be submitted by the contesting party. Thus, the patent examiner doesn't have to spend a lot of time on the case. The loser pays method encourages the parties to come to an agreement prior to the examination.
This system also encourages sharing more than the current system. Since the initial filing no longer requires an expensive application, there is no reason not to submit the patent (and its enclosed information). This avoids the current problem of people not having the resources to pursue a patent application, so they simply keep it secret and hope for more resources in the future.
The biggest weakness? Noise. There would be a lot of junky patent filings. Of course, some would ask how that is different from the current system.
There is also an argument in favor of eliminating patents except for pharmaceuticals. Many patents are defensive (to protect against others patenting one's invention). Other patents are just moonshine (i.e. they will never be licensed or used by anyone else). The primary purpose of invention is for one's own use...no patent needed for that.
Re:Open source patent office? (Score:3, Insightful)
One is the type of technology being patented. We're seeing more and more patents on procedures (business, medical, software etc). Procedures can be described in terms broad enough to cover situations that didn't even exist when the patent was filed, and it's hard to know what term will be too broad tomorrow: "computer network" was specific enough 15 years ago but too vague 5 years later.
Two is the way patents are used today. The goal of a patent was to allow the inventor to lic
About time (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see how this patent could possibly be held valid...well...wait a minute...this is the US Patent Office we're talking about here. We should be afraid.
Re:About time (Score:5, Informative)
Don't think so...
From 'Beneath Apple DOS', the major structural elements are..
VTOC - Volume Table of Contents
The Catalog - Kind of obvious
The Track/Sector List - Also kind of obvious
It's actually the long file names patent (Score:5, Informative)
5,579,517
which covers the "long file names" stuff Windows 95 introduced, and they site two patents:
5,307,494 to Yasumatsu et al., and
5,367,671 to Feigenbaum et al.
as new prior art.
And now you'll see how the patent system works... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before, the patent (on browser plugins) being challenged belonged to an individual who was suing Microsoft and even managed to get an injunction (can't remember whether they actually ordered Microsoft to pay or not).
That patent was quickly challenged and nullified. While the w3c and other groups initiated the challenge, I think the reason the patent was nullified was that it belonged to someone who was being used to (successfully) target Microsoft.
Now the patent being challenged belongs to Microsoft, and is being challenged by some small-time nobody (as far as Big Business is concerned).
My prediction is that either the challenge itself will be rejected, or the patent office will "review" the patent and find it "valid". Not because of any merits the patent may have, but because of who owns it. The guys running the patent office know who butters their bread, and it ain't organizations like PUBPAT.
Don't buy into it. (Score:5, Interesting)
So don't call them 'FAT' patents, because they aren't. Call them VFAT patents. Or call them by their names, which also makes it obvious.
Something doesn't add up (Score:3, Insightful)
FAT was in use well before 1996 but 1996 is when the patent was approved|awarded (which is what everyone needs to pay attention to when they scream bloody murder in other postings.
Now, you have to wonder how long a business has to sit on material before they submit it to the patent office. This is generally one year. Even in spite of this, that's 1995. That's still much later than when FAT was first used.
I know we all like to see Micro$oft get slapped around, but I think this is another case of jay walking and faking being hit by car to file a law suit. If this [even] gets past the preliminaries, it'll be settled out of courts for a reasonably small, undisclosed sum of money.
4DOS? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure I remember using 4DOS around the DOS 3.3 to DOS 5.0 days.
Re:4DOS? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:4DOS? (Score:3, Informative)
Patents don't cover a concept, they cover a method.
Re:4DOS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately these days it seems when you patent a method it covers the concept.
Did anyone bother to read these patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Give Them Money (Score:4, Interesting)
The "Online" link on this page [pubpat.org] will take you straight to PayPal.
Let's See More of That Idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet THAT would get Microsoft's attention!
Re:Let's See More of That Idea! (Score:3, Informative)
It seems to me that what you're suggesting is roughly equivalent to sentancing amputation to a known, non-repentant jay-walker - just because you know he's non-repentant. The law against jay-walking never described suc
It's not your fault you're FAT (Score:5, Funny)
Remember, MS Cortislim isn't for everyone - only those who want to lose 10, 20, 30 megs of data or more should use MS Cortislim.
Call now and you'll receive an extra 1 month license for every 2 months you purchase!
Patent is on storing long filenames (Score:5, Informative)
Basically the issue is this... in FAT there are a fixed number of bytes to each file entry in the directory. It is only enough for 8+3 character filename. They could not just expand on this data structure because it would not be backward compatible. What they realized is that if you created a filename with the system, hidden and some other attributes set, the old versions of dos would never display the filename. So what they do to store a long filename is create multiple file entries each storing a few bytes of the long filename plus some additional data to piece it together. Basically in a old version of dos, these extra file entries would never be displayed but in windows 95 or newer, it would read and maintain both the short filename entry and the long filename entries.
Steve Ballmer? (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know Microsoft patented Ballmer.
Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Shouldn't they not be issued a patent on this if they allowed people to use their filesystem method? It seems like it's in such common use by many devices now...
Some other posts have indicated that the patent only covers the storage of long filenames associated with the FAT filenames for use by Windows...if this is true, isn't that an obvious invention (i.e. database relating short names to long names)? You can't patent a relational database based on purpose, can you? If so, I will be submitting my patent for databases that store telephone numbers in relation to adressee names within a matter of days, and get rich of the phone companies alone...
I wonder if HFS could be considered prior art...each file as I understand it, is given a unique ID with which is can be referenced by, regardless of path. This (as I am to understand) is how Mac apps can still save to any file if it is moved while opened. Could the ID number be considered a short name? Then again, FAT came before HFS, but HFS came before long Windows filenames...
IAONAL, anyone with definitive answers is more than welcome to correct me.
PubPat's revenge (Score:3, Funny)
Was this obvious in 1993? (Score:4, Interesting)
Claim:
1. In a computer system having a processor running an operating system and a memory means storing the operating system, a method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:
(a) storing in the memory means a first directory entry for a file wherein the first directory entry holds a short filename for the file, said short filename including at most a maximum number of characters that is permissible by the operating system;
(b) storing in the memory means a second directory entry for a the file wherein the second directory entry holds a long filename for the file and wherein the second directory entry includes an attributes field which may be set to make the second directory entry invisible to the operating system and the step of storing the second directory entry further comprises the step of setting the attributes field so that the second directory entry is invisible to the operating system, said long filename including more than the maximum number of characters that is permissible by the operating system; and
(c) accessing the first directory entry with the operating system.
Anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has actively participated in various forums to get the world hooked on FAT. Now they're wanting to charge for it.... Part of how they got there was by exerting their power over the desktops (which smells of anti-trust). For example FAT is part of the SmartMedia spec and has got incorporated into SmartMedia cards and hence the peripherals. I bet Microsoft would have refused to get involved with a non-FAT file system and essentiually the camera etc vendors had to choose between some other standard and being able to hook their cameras to Windows PCs.
Now there are a lot of other flash file systems out there that work with SmartMedia cards etc, but they are not supported by MS and never will be.
Re:Anti-trust? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FAT Stolen? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wait until now to pursue it? Well if they'd kicked off an action in 1996 the mass of consumer electronic devices (cameras, MP3s etc) would likely not have adopted FAT.
Re:How exactly does this work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wow, what's the big deal (Score:5, Informative)
a) Using a lookup table (to convert betwen long and short)
b) Using a hashing algorithm (to create short from long).
Its pretty obvious that these are entirely novel solutions to a unique problem, and are nothing to do with the use of hashing algorithms (eg during WWII) or lookup tables (eg civilisations prior to the ancient greeks)
The truth is, these absolutely must be novel, because ...[need more coffee]