FAT may fatten up Microsoft's coffers (A weather predicting umbrella)

In today's IT Blogwatch, we look at the FAT patent being upheld and potential consequences. Not to mention a weather predicting umbrella...

Microsoft scored a win with the US Patent and Trademark Office which could open a can of worms for anyone using FAT.  Elizabeth Montalbano  provided a run down is yesterday's ComputerWorld:  "The patent office ruled yesterday that patents that cover the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system in Windows are valid after completing a re-examination of the patents at the request of both a public interest group and an individual, said Tricia Payer, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom Inc ... FAT is the technology in Windows that allows files to be stored under certain file names, but it is not exclusive to Windows. FAT also is widely used in removable media such as Universal Serial Bus memory sticks and cameras. Microsoft claims that it developed FAT in 1976 and was granted a patent on the file system in 1996 ... those with interests in developing and promoting open-source software, have disputed the FAT patents Microsoft holds ... Both the Public Patent Foundation, or Pubpat, and a California man named David L. Hoffman requested separately that the patents covering FAT be re-examined by the patent office ... The patent office initially rejected patent 5,579,517 in September 2004 ... Microsoft submitted more materials to support its claim ... Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and general counsel for the Free Software Foundation, said patent re-examination, in general, is weighted in favor of patent holders because they can provide evidence to support patents."

» John Oates, The Register looks more at the consequences: "The decision reverses two earlier judgements and potentially allows Microsoft to go after open-source developers who use the technology ... The decision is important because it could mean Microsoft could force open-source distributors to pay it a royalty or remove the software from their products ... Florian Mueller, founder of nosoftwarepatents.com, said the decision gave Microsoft the weapons to attack Linux. Mueller said: 'This is now a situation in which Microsoft could cause major problems to Linux vendors and users. Microsoft may not want to do that yet for other considerations ... the USPTO and even the European Patent Office continue to grant new patents to Microsoft daily, and some of them may be equally dangerous to open source as the FAT patents.' "

» C.T. Rambler makes his point about the process:  "I will go further by emulating the criminal court by placing the burden of proof of validity of the patent on that of the patent holder. His opponent simply have to poke holes in his claims. First and formost, a valid patent can be defended. Since only a patent worth its salt is worth defending, it also have the effect of rooting out weak patent. Not to mention that since the patent holder is willing to make a claim, he must be prepare to defend the claim. Lastly but not least important, a patent is a grant of monopoly over a particular method, therefore, it is the onus of the person gaining the monopoly to make a convincing argument and to defend it for the duration of the monopoly grant."

» Brandon Jaynes:  "Although Linux supports FAT, it may not in the near future because of this ruling. No big deal, I say. I’m an old school FAT-16 guy, but I can think of over a million crashes reasons to say goodbye to this file system for computers. Unfortunately, it’s all the CF cards, thumb drives, etc., that will get hit the hardest. Wishful thinking would have Microsoft put this file system in the public domain, but Microsoft's licensing page has already detailed the pricing ... They don't call them Micro$oft for nothing." [Might make shareholders happy if no one else.]

» From a user's perspective, Mr_Jenius: "However, after the 10+ years it has been out there Microsoft has a 95% marketplace on the PC front. Apparently they want to start charging manufacturers a .25$ licensing fee for every storage device they make that uses this format (which is most of them). There are a few ways around this, one of which is manufacturers giving the "finger" to ole Bill by shipping their wares unformatted. It shouldn't be too hard for the end user to do this from their home, and hopefully will avoid increased costs to the consumer ... this company was given a hearing where they were the only party allowed to speak."

» CloakedMirror(785242), Slashdot, agrees:  "I got it! Let's not pre-install any file system! Woah! That's a dangerous idea!  The fact that the manufacturer may pre-install a FAT based file system does not equate to the manufacturer being required to pre-install any file system. Memory, whether in the form of RAM, EPROM (in all its various flavors), or some sort of spinning opto/mechanical media, does not have a file system until someone puts one there. Send out unformatted flash cards and they get whatever file system is applied by the user's equipment!"

» El Womble (779715), Slashdot:  "Having a single filesystem that is accessible to all is good for everyone, especially Windows users. If Microsoft make it difficult to use digital cameras with their operating systems then they're going to piss a lot of people off. Digital cameras are one of the few reasons people buy a new computer so making it difficult to use digital cameras on Windows systems is not in their interests but perhaps worse for Microsoft is that people will install software that lets them use EXT3, Reiser4, UFS or heavens forbid, HFS+. People could use harddisks from other operating systems, with no need to defrag, decent meta information and genuine multi-user support!"

Buffer overflow:

• Philip Letts:  Open-source to get an upgrade
• George Drapeau: More On The Sun-Oracle Lovefest
• Tilmann Bruckhaus: Predictive Analytics vs. Information Retrieval
• Ken "Caesar" Fisher: New tensions in post-PowerPC Apple, as Intel wears two hats
• DrunkenData: SNIA Watch 2006: ILM Foo
• Om Malik: 8086 and Apple, the Stock Story
• Brian Krebs: A Time to Patch
• Harry Waldron: Linux users may be impacted by WMF in Windows emulation mode
• Nate Anderson: France pushes creation of European Google killer
• Alex Scoble: Dirty mouse balls slowing you down? Get an optical mouse
• Alex Scoble: Where Malware (Spyware, Adware, Viruses, Trojans, etc.) is going 
• Martin McKeay: Phishing statistics
• Ken Mingis: Mac fans: You want this program!
• Ken Mingis: Macs moving to Intel in time!
• Shark Tank: Be nice to users -- they have hard days too
• Martin MC Brown: Intel based Mac-ing

And finally...  A weather predicting umbrella ... now will it get it right more often than the weather man?

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.