This patent was asserted by Microsoft Corp. against TomTom.
WHAT'S NEEDED: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Prior Art
All Forms of Possible Prior Art - Priority Date of April 1, 1993
April 21st, 2009
Including:
(a) Publications Published Prior to April 1, 1993 [Publications can include any form of printed or electronic publication that discusses one or more elements of the claim of the patent.];
(b) Products on Sale, Offered for Sale, or Publicly Used Prior to April 1, 1993;
(c) Information That This Claimed Invention Was Public Knowledge Prior to April 1, 1993 [Such prior art may include processes embodying the invention that were in the public domain or publicly used by the patent holder, an inventor, or any third party prior to April 1, 1993.];
(d) Patents and Published Patent Applications filed in the U.S. Prior to April 1, 1993; or
(e) Knowledgeable Persons [Persons with knowledge of this patent or with knowledge pertaining to any of the other cited prior art].
COMMENTS
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start digging here. all that was dos was in cp/m first
http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Cpm/
Crawling various Wikipedia pages revealed the following:
- NT 3.5 added FAT LFN support in preparation for Windows 95, however the Windows 95 version of File Manager came from Windows for Workgroup 3.11 [Long filename page]
- Two editions of NT 3.1 were made available, Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT Advanced Server. It was succeeded by Windows NT 3.5 in September ***1994***. [Windows NT 3.1 page - emphasis added]
- 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. [File allocation table page]
- In OS/2 version 1.2 and later, the High Performance File System was designed with extended attributes in mind, but support for them was also retro-fitted on the FAT filesystem of DOS. For compatibility with other operating systems using a FAT partition, OS/2 attributes are stored inside a single file "EA DATA. SF" located in the root directory. [Extended Attributes page]
- Version 1.2 introduced Installable Filesystems and notably the HPFS filesystem. HPFS provided a number of improvements over the older FAT filesystem, including long filenames and a form of alternate data streams called Extended Attributes.[6] In addition, extended attributes were also added to the FAT filesystem.[7] [OS/2 page]
- The ISO 9660 file system (mainly used on compact discs) has similar limitations at the most basic Level 1, with the additional restriction [8.3 Filenames page]
- ISO 9660 traces its roots to the High Sierra file system. .... To facilitate cross platform compatibility, it defined a minimal set of common file attributes (directory or ordinary file and time of recording) and name attributes (name, extension, and version), ***and used a separate system use area where future optional extensions for each file may be specified.*** [ISO9660 page - emphasis added]
- High Sierra was adopted in December ***1986*** (with changes) as an international standard by Ecma International as ECMA-119 [1] and submitted for the fast tracking to the International Organization for Standardization, where it was eventually accepted as ISO 9660:***1988*** [ISO9660 page - emphasis added]
This Apple technote:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/fl/fl_36.html
is referred to by the Apple Extensions to ISO9660 page on Wikipedia. Such a CD would have been read by MS-DOS as having 8.3 filenames, yet read by Mac-OS as having longer filenames. Is that not analagous? This technote appears to be dated 1989.
How old are each of the ISO9660 extensions?
It appears that Novell Netware 3.x could support long filenames through a loadable module, but Wikipedia didn't reveal when such a loadable module might have been published. 3.x appears to have been available in '93 or earlier.
Anyway, hopefully there are some leads to follow in the above.
c.
A few more leads:
Abstract of US 5307494 (A)
A method of augmenting the length of the name of a file in a computer system which allows the use of file names longer than otherwise allowed by the system. A file name table is searched for a table entry corresponding to a long provisional name. An actual file name contained in the corresponding table entry is used to access the file.
US 5,367,671 System for accessing extended object attribute (EA) data through file name or EA handle linkages in path tables
- cites the following documents:
Duncan R., Design Goals and Implementation of the New High Performance File System, Microsoft Systems Journal, Sep. 1989 p. 1(13). .
Duncan R, Using long filenames and extended attributes pt. 1 PC Magazine Apr. 24, 1990 p. 317(5). .
Duncan R, Using long filenames and extended attributes pt. 2 PC Magazine May 15, 1990 p. 305(5). .
Abstract of JP 6019763 (A)
PURPOSE:To use a file name or a directory name more than a length restricted by a file system without changing the file system.
Abstract of JP 3017753 (A) [25 Jan 1991]
PURPOSE:To set an optional file name to a real file by storing the corresponding relation with the real file name set opposite to a virtual file name. CONSTITUTION:When a virtual file name is received, a CPU 4 executes an access to the record contents based on the record/field length registered in a control table. Then the CPU 4 decides whether the virtual file name included in a record is coincident with a given virtual file name or not. If so, a registered real file name is taken out and the corresponding file is loaded to a real memory 3 from a secondary storage 2. If not, the records stored in the control table receive successively accesses until the coincidence is secured between the virtual file name included in a record and the given virtual file name. In such a constitution, an optional file name can be set to a real file.
Abstract of JP 2230438 (A) [12 Sept 1990]
PURPOSE:To compress and control a long file name to which the file characteristics are reflected by using a means which compresses and converts a character string into an optional number of characters and a means which performs the reconversion to the duplication of converted character strings. CONSTITUTION:A compression/conversion part 1-2 checks the number of characters of an identification name 1-1 serving as an object of the file control and compresses properly these characters. A duplication processing part 1-3 changes the compressed/converted character string to a prescribed conversion area if the character string overlaps an existing file name. Then a reconversion table 1-4 is added. Thus it is possible to avoid such a case where a controllable file is regulated in terms of the length of the file name 1-5.
Abstract of JP 2148341 (A) [7 June 1990]
PURPOSE:To cope with an identification name unrestricted in length with a file structure restricted in the length of file names by constructing a tree structure in such a way that a data identifying name is fractionated into partial names by a character number less than a file name restricting character number and paths are extended at every divided unit by inserting a special character between each partial name.
Abstract of JP 1041039 (A) [13 Feb 1989]
PURPOSE:To realize the virtually unlimited use of the file name length in a program by converting a file name on a program into a real file name whose length is limited in a computer system.
Abstract of JP 1315842 (A) [20 Dec 1989]
PURPOSE:To attain the control of a file name of an arbitrary length by providing the file name storing area of a fixed length, a file name character number storing area and a file name continuous information area at an area to store the control information of a file.
Abstract of JP 1315843 (A) [20 Dec 1989]
PURPOSE:To manage a file name at an arbitrary length by providing a fixed- length file name memory area, a file name character number memory area, and a file name continuous information area in the area where the management information of the file is stored.
c.
PubPat successfully got the claims of this patent rejected under re-examination in 2004 using as prior art several earlier patents
http://www.pubpat.org/assets/files/MicrosoftFAT/Reynolds_517_Reexam_Request.pdf
http://www.pubpat.org/assets/files/MicrosoftFAT/Reynolds_517_Rejected_040916.PDF
Microsoft then filed amendments to the patent and got it re-instated in 2006. Where can we see the amended claims? I don't see how to look for useful prior art without knowing what was in those amendments and how they refuted what seems to be very clear prior art submitted by PubPat.
In around 1988 or 1989 I ordered and used a Sun 386i, an Intel 80386 based workstation running Unix with an MS-DOS emulator. I worked at the time for Oxford Brookes University
In a program running under the emulator one could access Unix (long) file names using a mapping to DOS 8+3 file names, for example the H: drive in the emulator would be the users home directory. I don't remember exactly how the coding worked but it is quite similar to that later used in Windows.
The system we had at Oxford Polytechnic has almost certainly been destroyed along with the manuals, but if Sun still have a manual it would detail how the mapping worked. I think this would be prior art for at least one claim of Microsoft's Patent on extended file names in FAT.
The machines were quite rare and proved unpopular so this might not have come to anyone's attention yet.
I found the amended claims on pages 20-22 at the end of the full patent, looking it up on Google Patent http://www.google.com/patents?id=cLAkAAAAEBAJ and scrolling all the way to the end of "read this patent". Microsoft modified claim 1, but more importantly for what is going on here, added 40 new claims to the original 4. Those claims are much more specific to the VFAT implementation and need to be considered when looking for prior art.
I am not a programmer since my Commodore VIC-20, but I remember that Geoworks did have a system for storing 32 character file names on FAT 8.3 file systems. Breadbox bought the GEOS operating system from Geoworks in 2003, and it was still available from Breadbox last year.
A short 8.3 name can be implemented as a symbolic link on a Unix file system. The capability of creating a shorter alias for a file name existed prior to Microsoft.