As reported on CNET’s news.com, Microsoft’s patent claims for their older file storage system called FAT (file allocation table) have been ruled valid after all. This is probably not surprising since it is well known that the FAT system was developed for MS-DOS in 1977 by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald, but it may have serious consequences for Linux vendors like Redhat who offer software packages like samba that allow users to access and write to Windows file systems.

Microsoft announced in 2003 that it was planning to license their outdated, inefficient and mostly irrelevant FAT file system. FAT generates lots of file fragments and doesn’t even support file permissions like Windows’ newer NTFS file system or Linux ext2 and ext3 file systems. However, it is the file system de jour for removeable media because it is really simple. It is widely believed that the move was orchestrated primarily as a direct attack against Microsoft’s main enemy in the server market - Linux and other popular Unix-like operating systems. Initially Microsoft’s claims were rejected due to concerns over ‘prior art’ by Xerox and IBM, in that the FAT system was not unique enough to warrant exclusive patent. The most recent ruling was issued under a ‘patent re-examination process’ which according to Public Patent Foundation President Dan Ravicher allows comment only from the party making the claim. Other affected parties, like Linux vendors were not allowed to offer comment even though it may require major changes to the distributions such vendors are shipping, since Linux cannot ship with software requiring any licensing other than GPL (GNU public License).

CNET’s news.com article January 10



History of the FAT table - Wikipedia



Licensing FAT - Microsoft



Microsoft’s patent claims rejected - CNET Oct 5, 2005