Sunday, October 03, 2004
FAT patent
From this story from the Toronto Globe and Mail, one of Microsoft's patents (U.S. Patent no. 5579517) based on its FAT file system was rejected. Based on my reading of the claims of the patent, the patent essentially claims the ability to have long and short file names in the file system using two directory entries. In a nutshell, this is the idea of using a phony entry in the Directory Table to store long file names. I played basketball with Arun, one of the co-inventors on the patent, when I was at Microsoft. Here is wishing him luck.
In a preliminary ruling, the U.S. government rejected Microsoft Corp.'s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names.
Microsoft vowed Thursday to appeal the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision, setting the stage for what could be long-running negotiations. The office could eventually decide to reject it outright, let it stand or change its scope.
The patent covers technology widely used on computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. In more recent years, it has also been used for naming files from devices that work with Windows, like digital cameras and portable music players.
In a preliminary ruling, the U.S. government rejected Microsoft Corp.'s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names.
Microsoft vowed Thursday to appeal the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision, setting the stage for what could be long-running negotiations. The office could eventually decide to reject it outright, let it stand or change its scope.
The patent covers technology widely used on computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. In more recent years, it has also been used for naming files from devices that work with Windows, like digital cameras and portable music players.
