scratch that, VFAT was introduced with NT3.5 (September 21, 1994), so the patent was probably filed for in anticipation of the NT3.5 release.

from the same wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

OS/2 added long filename support to FAT using extended attributes (EA) before the introduction of VFAT; thus, VFAT long filenames are invisible to OS/2, and EA long filenames are invisible to Windows, therefore experienced users of both operating systems would have to manually rename the files.

perhaps that was taken as prior art?

iirc the vfat extension to fat16, was introduced with win95 and had lfn support, while still not being fat32. even-so, the patents should be close to death assuming 20 years (not really sure what the term is in germany. anyone? ). the eu patent was filed for in 5.10.1994 and relates to lfn support.

from wikipedia:
1977 (Stand-alone Disk BASIC-80)
FAT12: August 1980 (SCP QDOS)
FAT16: August 1984 (IBM PC DOS 3.0)
FAT16B: November 1987 (Compaq MS-DOS 3.31)
FAT16X: August 1995 (Windows 95)
FAT32/FAT32X: August 1996 (Windows 95 OSR2)

Another year, another disappointing Toyota...

the green(ish) vehicle we want is the SARD Supra HV-R
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARD
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Toyota_Supra_HV-R_02.jpg

so why won't they build a few?!?!?!

if i could only spend all my mod points on one post to turn your funny into an insightful.

lemmings don't actually do the mass suicide thing. the disney company made that up in a movie called "white wilderness"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Wilderness_(film)

Hmm, could be...

Though, not all the media are liberal, but lately the conservative media has the habit of pissing away any shard of credibility. I think this is mostly due to selecting raving idiots (O'Reilly & Limbaugh spring to mind) for the spotlight.

My mainstream news sources are limited, have you heard much mainstream news call for impeaching Obama over the NSA's mass surveillance? I just assumed the republican politicians weren't saying anything because it's something they approve of.

I hope you're right, but I really worry that U.S. citizens are no longer up to the challenge of holding a politician's feet to the fire. Maybe it's our news networks colluding with politicians on damage control. Ayway, Nixon spied on another political party and it was somehow a bigger deal than the NSA spying on everyone.

NSA = Gladys Kravitz

M$, with every iteration of xbox, has been subconsciously trying to diminish the viability of windows as a gaming platform, this is mostly due to the 10 dollar royalty they get for each xbox game, compared to no royalty for each windows game. Games are the last reason for many technically minded people to retain a windows machine. Dev's won't take linux over windows yet, but in three months...if it's easy to port from ps4 to linux...then gamedevs may start to view windows as "not a worthwhile endeavor". Though allot of how that will turn out depends on the ps4 vs xbone face-off that's going to happen soon.

Perhaps Nintendo wouldn't care enough about the original Super Mario Brothers title to renew it past the first 14 years. I don't think they were still selling (firsthand that is) the game 14 years after its first publication.

Even if they did it would be 2 more years for the us publication date, and entirely public domain if taking graphics from the 1985 japanese famicom rom
.

Good Point.

Though, it seems beyond the intended effect of the law. Trademarks should be things like The Official Nintendo Quality Seal. Remember that awful graphics on NES games (except the Tengen ones)? Or the "Nintendo" or title "Super Mario Borthers".
Those seem like legitimate trademarks, intended to help avoid consumer confusion.

IP lawyers do tend to push the envelope creatively in applying trademark/dress protection.
the graphics for Mario, if they're a direct byte-by-byte copy it should be copyright infringement (indeed, that may be the case here), but if you yourself draw Mario, you are the copyright holder of that drawing of Mario and those Mario graphics.

The idea that trademarks/dress *should* apply for the art-style seems pretty out-of-scope of the intended laws though, which is, as you said, to avoid consumer confusion.

"...Marty McFly, Johnny Rico, and Kevin Bacon."

He does a few others, I think all the star trek tng and later movies too.

The official site is:
http://redlettermedia.com/category/plinkett-reviews/

click the "Mr Plinkett" dropdown

I was hoping someone would mention that...but your link didn't work for me.
try this 7 parter on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

I think the problem with Ubuntu is similar to the problem at M$. They feel that they have to make UI changes (they call them improvements) to show the end user it's not the same old thing.

I've really been wondering why a company doesn't just build something like litestep (basically a module loader and a large collection of modules) and continually beef each shell module's capability. Come up with a new layout each release to prove to people you're changing, while leaving old layouts around for people who liked them better.

Even the tech support guy not knowing how to tell you to do things over the phone would be no worse than it was with previous OS iterations "switch to '98 interface then click the gray bar" or they could now do the whole remote desktop thing.

some shops for this already exist. so grab blender and turn your dreams into a reality
shapeways.com
ponoko.com