Re: Fedora Core 2 wishlists

[Thomas Dodd <ted cypress com>]

Vic Gedris wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 02:19:45PM -0200, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>
> > On Dec 17, 2003, Tyler larson <fedora-devel tlarson com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > FAT is patented my Microsoft
> >
> > Some FAT extensions are.  The FAT filesystem format in general isn't,
> > AFAIK.
>
>
> Information from the source:
> http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

Anyone know the dates on those patents?

My old Atari ST computer used FAT on floppies. I think Amiga did to.
Were these patents liscensed by Atari/Commodore? Did they even exist then?

Then again, what the hell is patentable in a filesystem. Man, the USPTO 
really needs to stop patenting theis crap, and invalidate a lot of bogus 
junk they granted.

Not only are we loosing fair use, since the DMCA allow one to hide 
inside an protection scheme, the USPTO is going to make every thing 
patented, just in case somone cannot hide it in a protection scheme.
(and the EPO seam to be heading the same way)

	-Thomas