Anyone hear about the exFAT file system, the successor to FAT32?

[Yousuf Khan]

I wonder if they'll try a retrospective land grab? Claim that exFAT is
based on prior art, so they can extract licence fees for FAT too?

Wouldn't put anything past M$.

Prior art means something that existed before the patent application.
It's the exact opposite of applying for a patent, therefore prior art is
used to undo a patent, but never to reinforce a patent.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I gather exFat is part of Vista SP1

I've never seen a disk using it though.

I don't think it'll catch on. I have a 500GB external disk here that
came originally fully formatted in FAT32. FAT32 can span these large
volumes, so I'm not sure why Microsoft is saying FAT32's maximum volume
size limit is only 32GB! Sure it's got the 4GB file size limit, but
that's never a major problem.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

You can't patent something based on prior art.

Even if it's your prior art?

 

[mscotgrove]

I don't think it'll catch on. I have a 500GB external disk here that
came originally fully formatted in FAT32. FAT32 can span these large
volumes, so I'm not sure why Microsoft is saying FAT32's maximum volume
size limit is only 32GB! Sure it's got the 4GB file size limit, but
that's never a major problem.

        Yousuf Khan

32GB is the largest size that XP will format from within the operating
system. It is a completely artificial maximum. There are many tools
that allow formatting a 500GB disk as FAT32.

I have tried formatting an old FAT32 disk using Vista SP2, and the
default option is exFat, so I am trying it. Its a 250GB drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

Yousuf Khan wrote

(e-mail address removed) wrote

I don't think it'll catch on. I have a 500GB external disk here that
came originally fully formatted in FAT32. FAT32 can span these large
volumes, so I'm not sure why Microsoft is saying FAT32's maximum
volume size limit is only 32GB!

There is a theoretical problem with volumes bigger than 32GB.

Thats why XP etc wont format them, tho it is happy to use them.

Sure it's got the 4GB file size limit, but that's never a major problem.

That never is just plain wrong. The most obvious
problem is with video files produced by PVRs etc.
Hordes of those are bigger than 4GB.

 

[Rod Speed]

Mike Tomlinson wrote

Even if it's your prior art?

Yep, it you were stupid enough to not patent the prior art, you're ****ed.

You cant do it retrospectively that way.

 

[Mike Ruskai]

Even if it's your prior art?

Patents apply to novel and non-obvious advances. If something is prior art,
it is ineligble for a patent.

Moreover, patents are only valid for 17 years. You can't refresh that by
making a minor change. You have to invent something new, even if it's
something that modifies an existing entity. That patent applies to the update
only, though, not the original entity.

Microsoft has no patents for FAT. All they have (four patents) are for VFAT
and FAT32, and they're quite questionable at that (no more valid than the
patent for a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich). But they're enough
to extort money with, due to the wretched state of the US patent system these
days.

 

[David Brown]

Mike Tomlinson wrote


Yep, it you were stupid enough to not patent the prior art, you're ****ed.

You cant do it retrospectively that way.

How about this:

<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html>

(Yes, I know it was "teething problems" with a new patent system that
was supposed to make the system faster, easier and cheaper.)

 

[David Brown]

Patents apply to novel and non-obvious advances. If something is prior art,
it is ineligble for a patent.

Being ineligible for a patent has never stopped people applying for
patents, and has never stopped patent offices approving them (especially
in the US, but not limited to them). As long as companies are willing
to pay license fees for unreasonable patents, rather than challenge them
and get them overturned, then "innovators" are going to keep patenting
obvious ideas with plenty of prior art. MS excels at this (though they
are not alone) - I would not be surprised if they can figure out a way
to consider exFAT patents as being relevant to older FAT versions.

Moreover, patents are only valid for 17 years. You can't refresh that by
making a minor change. You have to invent something new, even if it's
something that modifies an existing entity. That patent applies to the update
only, though, not the original entity.

Again, that applies only in theory, not in practice. Some companies use
such modifications as a way to extend the existing patents, contrary to
the intentions of patents, and to patent laws. But as long as other
companies would rather pay small license fees than large legal fees in a
court room, such abuses happen.

Microsoft has no patents for FAT. All they have (four patents) are for VFAT
and FAT32, and they're quite questionable at that (no more valid than the
patent for a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich). But they're enough
to extort money with, due to the wretched state of the US patent system these
days.

That's the key point. Theoretically, you can't patent a crustless
peanut butter and jelly sandwich - in practice you can, and MS is one of
the biggest abusers of the system (though they haven't often sued other
companies).

MS are also experts at FUD and sowing confusion. You are entirely
correct that MS has no patents for FAT - but "fat patents" gives about a
million hits in Google because people /think/ they have patents on FAT.
And as long as people are convinced of that, MS can continue to extort
license fees (or other control) over other companies.

 

[Rod Speed]

David Brown wrote

Rod Speed wrote

How about this:

<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html>

Thats not a real enforceable patent.

(Yes, I know it was "teething problems" with a new patent system that was supposed to make the system faster, easier
and cheaper.)

It isnt even teething problems, its not a real enforceable patent.

 

[Rod Speed]

David Brown wrote

Mike Ruskai wrote

Being ineligible for a patent has never stopped people applying for patents,

Yes, but they dont end up with a real enforceable patent for prior art.

and has never stopped patent offices approving them (especially in the US, but not limited to them).

Yes, but they dont end up with a real enforceable patent for prior art.
Any attempt to enforce that patent in a court will see it tossed out.

As long as companies are willing to pay license fees for unreasonable patents, rather than challenge them and get them
overturned, then "innovators"
are going to keep patenting obvious ideas with plenty of prior art.

Doesnt mean that they end up with an enforceable patent for prior art.

MS excels at this (though they are not alone) - I would not be surprised if they can figure out a way to consider
exFAT patents as being relevant to older FAT versions.

They can consider whatever they like. What matters is whether they
can ever enforce license fees for FAT implementations. They cant.

Again, that applies only in theory, not in practice.

Wrong. It applys in practice too with the technology being discussed.

Some companies use such modifications as a way to extend the existing patents, contrary to the intentions of patents,
and to patent laws.

Bet you cant list even a single example with the technology being discussed.

But as long as other companies would rather pay small license fees than large legal fees in a court room, such abuses
happen.

Bet you cant list even a single example with the technology being discussed.

That's the key point. Theoretically, you can't patent a crustless
peanut butter and jelly sandwich - in practice you can,

Like hell you can and end up with a patent thats enforceable.

and MS is one of the biggest abusers of the system (though they haven't often sued other companies).

Bet you cant list even a single example with the technology being discussed.

MS are also experts at FUD and sowing confusion. You are entirely correct that MS has no patents for FAT - but "fat
patents" gives about a million hits in Google because people /think/ they have patents on FAT.

What matters is that they dont. And most of those patents are for obesity anyway.

And as long as people are convinced of that, MS can continue to extort license fees (or other control) over other
companies.

Bet you cant list even a single example with the technology being discussed.

 

[dennis]

There is a theoretical problem with volumes bigger than 32GB.

Theoretical? FAT32? No, the specs supports much bigger drives than 32GB
just fine.

 

[dennis]

Yep.

You can download a copy of the FAT32 specs from Microsoft's website. Try it.

 

[Rod Speed]

dennis wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Theoretical? FAT32? No,
Yep.

the specs supports much bigger drives than 32GB just fine.

There is a theoretical problem with volumes bigger than 32GB.

 

[Rod Speed]

dennis wrote

Rod Speed wrote

You can download a copy of the FAT32 specs from Microsoft's website.
Try it.

Irrelevant to what MS said about the problem with FAT32 partitions bigger than 32GB.

 

[dennis]

Irrelevant to what MS said about the problem with FAT32 partitions bigger than 32GB.

Irrelevant? Right. And XP supports FAT32 partitions much larger than
32GB just fine. The builtin formatting tool just won't format larger
than 32.

 

[Rod Speed]

dennis wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Irrelevant? Right.

Fraid so.

And XP supports FAT32 partitions much larger than 32GB just fine.

What I said LONG before you ever showed up.

The builtin formatting tool just won't format larger than 32.

And it refuses to do that for a reason.

And it aint just XP either.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

There is a theoretical problem with volumes bigger than 32GB.

And what's that theoretical problem?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Rod Speed]

Yousuf Khan wrote

Rod Speed wrote

And what's that theoretical problem?

MS claims its because many tasks on a very large FAT32 file system become slow and inefficient.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/magazine/2006.07.windowsconfidential.aspx

 

[mscotgrove]

Yousuf Khan wrote


MS claims its because many tasks on a very large FAT32 file system becomeslow and inefficient.http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/magazine/2006.07.windowsconfidenti...

That is not a theoretical problem, it is just that handling more than
32GB gets clumsy and NTFS is better. By putting the 32GB limit on
formatting just helps save some people from complaining about
performance.

Looking at exFAT very briefly, I'm not sure it actually much better.
The example (250GB disk) I am looking appears to have clusters of
128K, unless there is something I haven't seen yet, it will not be
very effecient at storing short files.

Michael