PUBPAT: At PUBPAT’s Request, Patent Office Rejects Microsoft’s FAT Patent

“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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