See: http://linuxtoday.com/news/2004093003026NWLL
"In the reexamination proceeding initiated earlier this year by the Public Patent
Foundation ('PUBPAT'), the United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected all
of the claims of Microsoft's patent on the FAT file system, which Microsoft describes
as 'the ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers, and, since
the advent of inexpensive, removable flash memory, also between digital devices.'
"Relying predominantly on evidence provided by PUBPAT when the reexamination was
requested, the Patent Office made multiple rejections of the Redmond, WA based
software giant's patent. Microsoft has the opportunity to respond to the Patent
Office's rejection, but third party requests for reexamination, like the one filed by
PUBPAT, are successful in having the subject patent either narrowed or completely
revoked roughly 70% of the time..."
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