German court invalidates Microsoft patent used for Motorola phone sales ban

Microsoft storage patent that was used to get a sales ban on products from Motorola Mobility in Germany has been invalidated by the German Federal Patent Court.

Microsoft's FAT (File Allocation Table) patent, which concerns a "common name space for long and short filenames" was invalidated, a spokeswoman for the Federal Patent Court. She could not give the exact reasons for the court's decision before the written judicial decision is released, which will take a few weeks. The File Allocation Table is a file system that traditionally only supports short file names in a rigid format, which makes it hard to give media files understandable and searchable names. Because that can be frustrating, Microsoft wanted to provide a system that supports a common name space for both long and short file names, so people can easily label and find their files, according to the patent in question. The dispute about this patent could continue. "The case can be appealed by Microsoft within a month after the formal notification of the judgment" with the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, the court's spokeswoman said.