[bad_user]

One of their most potent patent that they're using a lot is the FAT patent.

Basically there are filesystems out there that are superior to FAT and not encumbered by patents, but device makers are forced to use FAT because of interoperability reasons.

This goes to show that the innovation argument is bullshit.

[tracker1]

FAT is out of patent protection, I believe FAT32 is now too... exFAT is newer, but imho undeserving of an extension patent. Not sure where NTFS is, but with larger external storage, that's my preferred format these days, even using the devices with mac/linux. The BS with the commercialization of ntfs drivers on osx is kind of weird as well... I usually use the macfuse/free/oss driver.

[aries1980]

Isn't FAT that was ripped off from CP/M?