On Tue, 31 Mar 2009, Ralf A. Quint wrote: > At 05:59 PM 3/31/2009, Bonnie Dalzell wrote: > >> Here is a table with timelines. It would appear that FA12T patents - >> developd in 1980 would be expired. FAT 16 was introduced in 1984 along >> with MSDOS 3.0 - again more than 20 years ago. >> >> Extended partitions were introduced in 1986. Again just 3 years more than >> 20 years ago. MSDOS 3.3 is Aug of 1987. >> >> File Allocation Table >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table >> >> the part of this page in the section "Long file names" suggests to me that >> the LFN was available before windows 95 was released. I wonder how close >> this patent is to expiration and if M$ went to court to try and wring a >> last bit of money out of it and upset the open source community? > > Again, those 4 patents are referring to long file names (which first > became available with Windows 95) and have been filed between 1992 > and 1997, so they are in effect 'til 2012/2017... > > Ralf
TomTom settled because it was cheaper to pay a licensing fee than to go to court. Since it did not go to court there has been no ruling on the validity of the patent. However lawyers in the Free Software community state that they still reguard the FAT patents as weak and challengable under "prior art". Here is an article: "OIN: TomTom settlement is no win for Microsoft, expect challenge" http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=3849 > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bonnie Dalzell, MA mail:5100 Hydes Rd PO Box 60, Hydes,MD,USA 21082-0060|EMAIL:bdalz...@qis.net freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com. Editor Net.Pet Online Animal Magazine - http://www.netpetmagazine.com HOME http://www.qis.net/~borzoi/ BUSINESS http://www.batw.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
