Germany Rejects Microsoft FAT Patent 162
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.
1980 (Score:1)
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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?)
Ya gotta fight fire with fire (Score:4, Insightful)
The system is broken. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
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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.
Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire (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.
Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The difference is who has access tot he funding needed to defend themselves and how the justice system is revolved around treating people fair. What you end up with is a huge bale set for you and me but largely small to keep corporate offenders in jail. You also end up with having a herder time affording good lawyers were it is more readily available to corporations.
And don't think money means you win. Look at the execs form Tyco, Worldcom and En
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A huge ass fine that puts a company into bankruptcy == A huge ass fine that puts a person in personal bankruptcy.
What is needed it a system that halts the company from doing business for a set period of time, preferably while it's board of directors are in prison, if the company is found guilty of crimes that would have put a individual person in prison.
The corporation
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It's probably a good thing that corporations can't get married.
I don't know about that. If they were married then at least they'd commit to only screwing their one partner. Right now they try to screw everybody they possibly can.
Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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. Nothi
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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 busin
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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 ev
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Enough monopolies have fallen over the years to more flexible, innovative, nimble competitors, that it's clear that just being big won't save you. In fact, being big is more of an impediment than an
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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 equi
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Why again do we need environmental regulation? If private people owned the land then they could sue when someone polluted their land, this makes regulation unnecessary.
Consider pollution from cars. Who are you going to sue for polluting your air? Who will stand up for wildlife? Also consider that by the time you get around to suing somebody, a lot of damage can be done. Wouldn't it be better to prevent this damage in the first place? Regulation has proven itself very practical. Look at how bad the environment was and was getting before regulation came into place. Look at places that don't have regulation.
I have a libertarian bent (I would like more personal freedom
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It is when rules and laws are over looked. Competition is locked out and when government help that the monopoly can happen. At best they become content with an oligopoly. But there will always be competition and competition will tend to favor the large but smaller company who can adjust to market pressures faste
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They don't actually need to do something wrong, or break any laws, they just need to be a successful corporation, with lots of large ugly stores, full of cheep products, and staffed by low income workers.
Wal-Mart's treatment of their employees, among other things, has been well documented as unethical and occasionally illegal. I hope you don't seriously think they've never done anything wrong.
Why do I hate MSFT? (Score:2, Flamebait)
But to be honest, what really gets to me about Microsoft
No big loss (Score:1)
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Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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So yes. I do blame them.
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Fix the patent system, and save your ire towards MS for things like illegally leveraging their monopoly power.
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But illegally leveraging their monopoly power is exactly what Microsoft is trying to do with their FAT patents. The FAT file system isn't useful to anyone besides someone trying to interoperate with Microsoft Windows. Microsoft's targets in their licencing efforts [microsoft.com] have been to go after removable media vendors and consumer electronics companies. The only value the FAT patents have for these compa
Sorry but, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry but, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry but, (Score:5, Funny)
Yo mama's so fat we had to format her with NTFS.
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What about? (Score:1)
Inquiring mind demand to know!
Hmm.. (Score:4, Funny)
Prior art. (Score:2)
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Mmm...Döner. (Score:2)
Man, I could go for a Döner right now, actually. I'd probably just lose interest somewhere over the Atlantic, though.
Whoa!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Is Germany allowed to patent software? (Score:2)
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Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software? (Score:5, 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...
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Actually, it's an attempt of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) to legitimize software patents.
The European Commission (EC) drafted a proposal for a common directive that allowed patents. The European Parliament (EP) discussed the proposal and (due to the efforts
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That is almost correct. In Europe, software _as such_ cannot be patented. And "as such" turn out to be two very important words in this context. Patent lawyers have been very creative in getting software patented as something that is not quite software "as such". The most popular approach seems to be to patent it as software "that runs on a computer", which may or may not be different from software "as such".
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IANAL but I have written and released patent infringing software, and I always wondered if I would
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The fact that they have been rejected on a European level doesn't mean that individual countries can't implement them, it just means that if you patent a piece of software in one EU country there's no guarantee that it will be respected in another.
One way to look (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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No it IsNot [slashdot.org]!!!
</SARCASM>
Sarcasm tags added for the sarcasm-impaired, in compliance with the ADA.
An ideal one-liner solution to the patent law (Score:2)
1) The market is improved by keeping patents from harming free distribution of goods and services that in general better the lives of others. [i.e. patents cannot become tools of anti-generocity and anti-benevolacne]
2) The patent holders cann
FAT Patent? (Score:5, Funny)
This is great... fta (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
FAT is old (Score:5, Informative)
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Didn't Apple do something like this to network ProDOS machines onto AppleShare file servers?
(ouch, several of those neurons haven't fired for 15 years)
I have to believe ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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You [slashdot.org] must [slashdot.org] be [slashdot.org] new [slashdot.org] here [slashdot.org]. 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
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FAT patent (Score:3, 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...
Re:FAT patent (Score:5, 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).
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I am not proposing that we can code around a patent. I am merely repeating what others have stated in the past.
The irony is not lost on you obviously: you can't code around a patent like this. Either you license the patent or you drop the feature.
Since I've been moderated as flamebait on this, it's obviously a touchy subject - sorry about that. The truth sucks sometimes...
Surprised they didn't come up with an alternative (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Surprised they didn't come up with an alternati (Score:2)
They did. [wikipedia.org]
FAT history (Score:2)
Real Prior Art (Score:1)
Isn't FAT a rip-off from CP/M ?
Wouldn't it be considered prior art if presented in court ?
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Microsoft's Full Patent List [Browsable] (Score:3, Interesting)
Its hosted at a free patent searching tool, so don't blame me if their servers melt.
Microsoft's Patents [patentmonkey.com]
Microsoft = Cartman? (Score:1)
Software patents (Score:2)
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Not just Gates; probably everyone (Score:2)
I was working at a Fortune 500 minicomputer company in 1991, and the corporate law office sent around a memo that was posted on every department's bulletin board. It read something like this:
"Many progammers believe that software cannot be patented. The message of this memo is simple. They are wrong:" and then, in 144-point type that could be read from across the room:
"IT CAN BE."
Similar things were probably
6,000 patents since 1991? (Score:2)
I know that the general opinion here is that MS is evil, and (software) patents are evil, but IBM is still by far the largest patentee in this field, and some of us still remember when Big Blue was as evil and hated as MS is now.
Point being don't single MS out for criticism, as they're all doing it, even our "friends".
Real land of chocolate (Score:1)
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[1] The black Toblerones are quite nice, if you can still get them.
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Be careful, especially if you're still under 90% or the chocolate police will be knocking on your door. Actually, I find the best stuff is French [worldwidechocolate.com], not Swiss.
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The cocoa bean comes from South America (though most of it is now grown in West Africa). So while Switzerland may make a lot of chocolate it can't really claim to be the "Land of Chocolate".
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Greetings from Switzerland.
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And beer festivals. Yum...
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Re:"FAT" - who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
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camera memory, flash drives,
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=834CMndtLqA [youtube.com]
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Ahem... (Score:2)
and they use FAT32 for those for interoperability with everything, MS claiming they have
a patent on that file format and everybody owes them royalties...
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FUSE/ntfs-3g is changing this, though, so now at least Linux and Windows can read/write to a common file system now, and FUSE works on Mac OS X too (but it's not easy to install yet. Maybe
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Oh, I know, OSS operating systems can read it. *dawns conspiracy hat*, maybe MSFT wants to make it even harder to work with OSS?
Tom
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On the other hand, a new filesystem designed specifically for embedded use would probably be a worthwhile development, and perhaps these patents will cause someone to do just that. Not that microsoft aren't too arrogant to include support for anyone else's filesystem.
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If you're referring to some kind of Ipod, bear in mind that previously, Apple would format the Ipod differently depending on the host OS that it was first used on. Nowadays though, they've dropped that, and use FAT32 on all Ipods.
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Wikipedia agrees. [wikipedia.org]
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I actually meant to say "some small devices (most MP3 players and such)". I know the iPod is an exception (when formatted by a mac). Most mp3 players by other manufacturers use FAT, and the iPod when you formatted it for Windows.
As for Linux being able to read HFS+: I'm not so sure about that. Wikipedia claims there's 'some Linux' support, but I don't know if that means that only some distro's support it, or if it's supported in a limited fashion (like NTFS was until recently). Have you actually tried rea
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The restriction is that it doesn't support journaled HFS+ for writing (as in, it works but is unsupported because it hasnt been tested enough to be sure it wont corrupt the journal). The support is right there in the stock kernel sources, as well as support for mac partition tables (as used on PPC macs) which will also be created when you format an ipod on a mac.
As for distro support, that I don't know, yellow dog obviously supports it as i'm sure
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Patents are about being first to create a product or process, recognizing its value, and capitalizing on that value by seeking patent protection.
The basis for patent law is that patents provide necessary protection to inventors to advance society further than would be the case without patents. History shows that software patents are not needed. Even Bill Gates agreed with this position in 1991, but was forced into the patent game for defense. Sadly they extended that to offense.
I believe that, while the patent is valid in principle, since MS failed to actively defend the patent initially they cannot start enforcing it now.
"cannot" ethically or legally? And if legally, in which country, Germany or the US?