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According to Microsoft, the Redmond company is going to charge a license fee for any product that is formatted in FAT by the manufacturer. Any manufacturer of compact flash memory cards or digital cameras may end up paying Microsoft as much as $250,000 for the use of the file format. The FAT File System is covered by several US patents.

Read more: Slashdot.

Unbelievable, just let it go, you are already making gagillians or dollars, why torture others to pay for a silly patent?

Why now? Why not charge initially? I can see why they'd want to do this, but why weren't they doing it before.

More of a general comment:
It really sucks when you are getting to use something for free and then suddenly it costs money.

We still have to see how this really turns up... in one hand Microsoft can indeed claim they put hours of work building the system, but then of course in practice it's like those silently holding patents later used on actual products... if there is room for a lawsuit and making money (which is the case for those products that become a "standard"), then of course they go for it although that doesn't mean it is "the right thing to do".

Things are getting out of hand. I need to go to McDonalds and pour some coffee in my crotch so I can have a few free million dollars. Its no different than the crap that these companies pull. Id say alot of these companies should just swap to the RAW file system. No one owns that do they? Change to anything that stupid Microsoft cant claim as their own. Im surprised they havent come to my door and said "We are going to charge you for that air you are breathing because we have 62 US patents on it. Is that concrete you are walking on? We need to charge you for walking on that. We have a few patents on it and you need to pay." Stupid Microsoft. Im getting to where I hate any company anymore. Its why I dont understand fanboys. It makes no sense to praise and love some company considering they are only interested in your blood, not giving you some fab product that is good for you and cheap enough to where you dont have to get a second mortgage. These companies could care less if you were in a freak helicopter accident where you lost your wang in the rotor before being flung out to sea only to have a shark eat your hands off only to have your penis saved and reattached but recieve the news your hands are long gone with the shark that took them.

Sorry, I was picturing all of that last part in my mind for some very strange reason after watching something on the National Geographic channel.

It always works this way.

Free hosting, free stuff is always free until enough people use it. Then when it's too difficult to go back, they ask you to pay...

I think it is too late to start charging a FAT Fee for the license. For years floppy disk manufacturers have been selling preformatted disks with FAT already on them. How the law works if you go for years and do not protect and defend your patent then you lose the ability to do so.

It's theirs, so they have to right to charge of course. unless of course the above comment is right-on, then i change my answer to agree with him ;-)
i know they're huge and powerful and evil, but they still should be allowed to protect their creation.

Well I can see companies just not paying the licence and selling unformatted hardware. It's not that big a deal really. It just means if you get an unformatted HDD it takes only a few mins and it's formatted by a Windows disk. Same apply's for Flash media....etc.

It only applies to companys not the end user so buy it unformatted and get it cheaper.

An excelent point. Thats the perfect retaliation for the companies as they would have to spend 0 time formatting the media or devices. So, that means "Who cares if they charge?".

[size=1]Edited by Poertner_1274: Please watch language on the boards[/size]

You know, somebody somewhere has to pay for the FAT technology. Digital camera makers will still have to pay the royalty (for example) as long as their cameras have the ability to format in FAT32.

It probably isn't just a matter of actual formated media as much as it is with the technology to make it.