Motorola Android devices banned in Germany for infringing Microsoft's F

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Motorola Android devices banned in Germany for infringing Microsoft's FAT patent

The Mannheim Regional Court has ruled on Microsoft?s FAT patent case against Motorola, granting Microsoft's request for a ban on relevant devices, according to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents. Following the decision, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, David Howard issued the following statement:

"Today's decision, which follows similar rulings in the U.S. and Germany, is further proof that Motorola Mobility is broadly infringing Microsoft's intellectual property. We will continue to enforce injunctions against Motorola Mobility products in those countries and hope they will join other Android device makers by taking a license to Microsoft's patented inventions."

In order to enforce the injunction, Microsoft will need to pay a ?10 million bond, reports Mueller. Also, as part of the decision, Motorola will have to remove infringing products from retail, and Microsoft will be entitled to an as-yet-undertimined amount in damages. Microsoft tells us that the injunction affects all Android devices that use FAT on internal storage, including the Atrix, Razr, and Razr Maxx, further explaining that the decision bolsters the injunction it was awarded on May 24th:

"We already have an injunction against Motorola products in Germany as a result of a ruling on May 24, and today?s ruling serves to strengthen this injunction. In the long term, if Motorola wishes to sell products on the German market, it must either take a license or stop using the technology covered by our patents including the ones at issue in this week?s decisions."

The patent in question, EP0618540, is part of Microsoft?s File Allocation Table (FAT), a legacy filesystem that's still widely used, primarily for backward compatibility. It covers long name / short name file indexing, whereby each file has one short and at least one long filename associated with it, giving two-way access to the stored information. The decision is unrelated to the ongoing legal wrangling between the two companies over FRAND licensing for Motorola's H.264 patents.

Source: The Verge

[Vice]

Can't wait to see the replies to this topic.

[Praetor]

FAT patent? gross.

[FloatingFatMan]

Why still use FAT? Use one of the many other filesystems supported by Linux.

[Anibal P]

Why still use FAT? Use one of the many other filesystems supported by Linux.

Some people can't figure out how to use other file systems on Windows computers, it's supposedly "too hard"

[BoredBozirini]

[techbeck]

Motowho??? They still make phones? Mainly just hear about HTC/Samsung/Apple/Nokia....

Anyway...maybe an easy fix to redo the OS with a different file system and push out the update. Would get them past the ban anyway.

[ichi]

Back when Microsoft sued Tomtom over this same patent there was a patch for the FAT implementation that worked around the patent by not storing both the long and the short file name at the same time, but just the short one if it was shorter that 11 chars and the long one if it was larger.

I guess it wasn't implemented in Android's kernel, but considering Microsoft's overt hostility I wonder why they didn't just do that. Or why they don't do it now.

[2xSilverKnight]

Everyone use ext4 in Android .. except Motorola it seems ..

[Growled Member]

Why still use FAT? Use one of the many other filesystems supported by Linux.

I know. FAT is ancient.

[Ryoken]

Everyone use ext4 in Android .. except Motorola it seems ..

Hardly.. If you can connect a USB to move files over natively in Windows, or use SD cards, etc, then it's using FAT..

Like it or not, FAT is the universal standard for filesystems.. almost everything can read and write it without trouble..

[Mr. Gibs]

Hardly.. If you can connect a USB to move files over natively in Windows, or use SD cards, etc, then it's using FAT..

Like it or not, FAT is the universal standard for filesystems.. almost everything can read and write it without trouble..

Then pay the money and license it.

Don't like it? Go use another file system.

[Ryoken]

Oh I agree.. If it's MS's patent, then they should pay up..

You can't really argue this one, MS has implemented it for a long time lol

[ArialBlue]

They should be banned for using FAT. I mean FAT. FAT. NO. JUST NO.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Motowho??? They still make phones? Mainly just hear about HTC/Samsung/Apple/Nokia....

Anyway...maybe an easy fix to redo the OS with a different file system and push out the update. Would get them past the ban anyway.

Motorola, you know the company Google bought.....

[Ryoken]

They should be banned for using FAT. I mean FAT. FAT. NO. JUST NO.

Then other devices that should be banned include just about every digital camera ever made..

fyi.. No where does it say it was using FAT as it's own filesystem.. Just that it has the infringing code.. probably for reading SD Cards..

[ichi]

Hardly.. If you can connect a USB to move files over natively in Windows, or use SD cards, etc, then it's using FAT..

Only if it's being mounted as mass storage.

Like it or not, FAT is the universal standard for filesystems.. almost everything can read and write it without trouble..

Which is why it's obnoxious to be sued for patent infringement when using it.

Given the current patent laws Microsoft is obviously entitled to collect royalties, but considering that the filesystem is archaic and used not because of it's qualities but just for the sake of interoperability with the leading OS (where using third party filesystems would be a PITA) using the patent offensively is still pretty lame.

It's not all MS fault though, vendors should have foreseen all this crap and standarized on a vendor-neutral, royalty free filesystem for removable media.

Also vendors could have implemented Andrew Tridgell's patch to get a perfectly working FAT support without infringing Microsoft's patent.

[FloatingFatMan]

One has to wonder why FAT isn't covered under FRAND. It should be...

[Growled Member]

One has to wonder why FAT isn't covered under FRAND. It should be...

Good point and one I've never considered.

[Ryoken]

Even if it was, Motorola would still have to license it.. which they didn't do.. Also they/google aren't exactly the moral high ground for FRAND.. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/29/ftc_investigating_google_motorola_over_frand_patent_abuse.html [ sorry about the source.. I'm too lazy to find another one lol ]