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03-16-07, 11:21 PM
While the U.S. courts recently reaffirmed micr@soft's FAT (File Allocation Table) patents, the German Patent Federal Court has just dismissed the patent for use in Germany.
According to a report in the German news publication Heise Online, the court has denied the protection that the European Patent Office granted to micr@soft under EP 0618540 for a "common namespace for long and short filenames." This was based on micr@soft's U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352. The German Patent Court stated that the patent claims micr@soft made are "not based on inventive activity."
FAT is a file system that wind@ws and other operating systems use to track the clusters of data that make up files on mass storage devices, such as hard drives or USB memory sticks. In Linux circles, it's best known for its use in the Samba server application. Samba enables wind@ws PCs to read and write files on Linux servers, and allows Linux desktops to access wind@ws servers.
Some supporters of Linux and free software have long feared that micr@soft could use its FAT patents to attack Linux vendors and users. While micr@soft has never done so, micr@soft CEO Steve Ballmer has often made claims that Linux "uses [micr@soft's] intellectual property."
:dildoballs:
Source (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2103368,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594)
According to a report in the German news publication Heise Online, the court has denied the protection that the European Patent Office granted to micr@soft under EP 0618540 for a "common namespace for long and short filenames." This was based on micr@soft's U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352. The German Patent Court stated that the patent claims micr@soft made are "not based on inventive activity."
FAT is a file system that wind@ws and other operating systems use to track the clusters of data that make up files on mass storage devices, such as hard drives or USB memory sticks. In Linux circles, it's best known for its use in the Samba server application. Samba enables wind@ws PCs to read and write files on Linux servers, and allows Linux desktops to access wind@ws servers.
Some supporters of Linux and free software have long feared that micr@soft could use its FAT patents to attack Linux vendors and users. While micr@soft has never done so, micr@soft CEO Steve Ballmer has often made claims that Linux "uses [micr@soft's] intellectual property."
:dildoballs:
Source (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2103368,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594)