"Long before this case appeared, the PUBPAT (Public Patent Foundation ) tried to get the '517 patent, which is the core patent of the trio, overturned. PUBPAT argued that there had been "previously unseen prior art showing the patent, ... was obvious and, as such, should have never been granted." However, in the end, the Foundation was unable to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to overturn the patents.
"To astute open-source legal observers, these patents have long been troubling. By requiring vendors to pay a royalty for their use, this could make it impossible for free software systems to read and write to FAT file systems, because their open-source licenses forbid royalty payments."
