Breaking news: King Linus Torvalds makes Microsoft Fat32 patent invalid (Prior art)

[Qaridarium]

Right, but the PTO has to decide if the prior art is convincing enough to strike down the patents though

and they can chose to not notice the Prior art?
Prior art is one way to kill a patent instantly.

and they can not ignore the facts.

[ChrisXY]

Why don't we use this occassion to once again discuss whether such trivial patents should be granted at all?

The patent office seemed to think this method has a level of inventiveness high enaugh to be a patent. At the same time we see Linus "inventing" this method by enumerating some methods that come to his mind when reading the question... YEARS before.

What happened to the rule that it cannot be patented when the method is obvious to an expert?

[CharlieBitMe1991]

I could tell from a mile away that it was the man, the myth, the legend Q that made this incredibly uneducated thread. While yes, it's beneficial to everything that this happened it doesn't immediately mean that the patent will go away because M$ has lots of $$$s and since that's one of their most generic patents (Or so I'd guess) they'd really like to keep that patent, and in America if you bribe the right people you can pretty much keep whichever patents you'd like (Or pay the senate copious quantities of cash to get a law passed in your favor).

That said, if the USPTO acquire a brain then there's a good chance that they'll invalidate the patent because it shouldn't be patented, but then again nor should by far most of the other garbage that's been patented. We'll see. Uncle Sam takes orders from no one, and this is no exception.

[Qaridarium]

Why don't we use this occassion to once again discuss whether such trivial patents should be granted at all?

The patent office seemed to think this method has a level of inventiveness high enaugh to be a patent. At the same time we see Linus "inventing" this method by enumerating some methods that come to his mind when reading the question... YEARS before.

What happened to the rule that it cannot be patented when the method is obvious to an expert?

"What happened to the rule that it cannot be patented when the method is obvious to an expert"

you are so right!... in germany this rule is "law" if an "expert" come to the same conclusion in 5 minutes working on the problem then it isn't a "level of inventiveness high enaugh"

[Qaridarium]

I could tell from a mile away that it was the man, the myth, the legend Q that made this incredibly uneducated thread.

what if the discussion in this thread is the desired content and not the bottle in form of my start?

anyway I’m honoured to be a uneducated legend myth.

[Picander]

By the way.. first announcement (and development) of linux kernel was on usenet, not newsletters. iirc it was in comp.minix group.