FAT patent in Europe is invalid

The Federal Patent Court of Germany declared invalid the patent EP0618540, which was valid until the last moment in the territory of the European Union. The patent describes the architecture and methods of placing long file names in the FAT file system, which, due to its simplicity, is still widely used for flash drives and other storage media. Previously, this file system was very popular on other media.

This patent was one of the key levers for exerting pressure and concluding agreements on the collection of deductions from manufacturers of devices based on Linux and the Android platform. For example, this patent was recently used to initiate a ban on sales of Motorola Android devices in Germany.

Microsoft is preparing to challenge the decision of the German court in higher instances, but the filing of the appeal will take at least a month, which may affect the license fees. Previously, patent EP0618540 had already tried to disqualify, but then the court eventually took the side of Microsoft.

via fosspatents.com