From Dan Ravicher at Public Patent Foundation
NEW YORK -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued an
Order granting the Public Patent Foundation's Request for Reexamination of
Microsoft's patent on the FAT file system, which Microsoft concedes is "the
ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers, and,
since the advent of inexpensive, removable flash memory, also between
digital devices." In its Order, the Patent Office found that PUBPAT's
request raised "a substantial new question of patentability" regarding every
claim of the patent.
Microsoft now has the opportunity to make an opening statement to the Patent
Office, to which PUBPAT has the right to make a response. After opening
statements, if any, the Patent Office will proceed to determine whether the
patent is indeed invalid in light of the new questions raised by PUBPAT's
request. 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.
"We are obviously very pleased with the Patent Office's decision to grant
our request to reexamine Microsoft's FAT patent," said Dan Ravicher,
PUBPAT's Executive Director and Founder. "This is the first step towards
ending the harm being caused to the public by this patent that should have
never been issued."
More information about the Request for Reexamination, including a copy of
the Patent Office's Order Granting the request, can be found at
http://www.pubpat.org/Protecting.htm.