New Linux patch could circumvent Microsoft's FAT patents

On the one hand, this seems like a clever bit of lateral thinking with tangible benefits, so it makes me happy. On the other hand, a lateral move had to be found to ditch a...wait for it...patent absurdity, so I'm a little miffed that the need even existed.

Maybe someone should create a lateral-thinking patent evasion group. If they did, would we primarily be smugly satisfied with ourselves for having done so, or would we be overcome with angst over the fact that such a group might be needed?

Actually, if someone created a lateral-thinking patent evasion group, as proposed, they would probably violate a patent filed by someone who thought of it in the first place but couldn't be buggered to implement it in practice.

USPTO Patent #7075962 (Tridgell et al): Method for circumventing USPTO Patent #5579517.

ESR on Microsoft vs TomTom case: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=819