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DPReview reports that Microsoft now intends to start charging manufacturers of flash memory card devices $0.25 per unit to use the FAT File System, which Microsoft developed in 1976 and has since become the standard file system for nearly all digital cameras. I suppose this small amount really isn’t something to get worked up about, but it is illustrative of a disturbing trend at Microsoft to let something be free only until it dominates the market, at which point MS starts charging for it. There were times when Microsoft hinted that MSIE would eventually become an application you would have to pay for, just like any other. Now we see that this is happening for Mac users, who will have to pay for a subscription to MSN to get current versions of MSIE from now on. (Windows users, of course, pay for MSIE as part of their operating system.)

Sure, it’s good business sense, but given Microsoft’s dominating position in the software industry, do we really want to allow the company to do the same thing in hardware? I fear that this sort of thing will become more and more common as Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management technology starts to require more restrictive hardware/software combinations. Before the end of our lifetimes, you might be forced into a situation where you have to pay Microsoft $0.25 every time you open your own documents or something similarly insidious, albeit well within the company’s legal rights.

Microsoft’s ownership of the patents for the FAT File System gives it the right to do whatever it wants, but I think this kind of behavior is yet another example of why the current patent system needs to be changed. Patents are supposed to be the government’s way of ensuring that innovators are duly rewarded for their work, but in practice the system is more about large corporations gobbling up patents to either defend their existing business models by preventing competitors from getting a foothold in the market (in which case the older, established businesses get to smack down newer, more innovative ones) or to milk an uncontested market for as much as it will bear (as is the case with what Microsoft is doing). Although Microsoft is well within its rights to charge for the use of its file system, I don’t see how doing so provides any additional innovation—which is supposed to be the point of having a patent system. It’s not entirely dissimilar to the process of copyright holders lobbying Congress to increase the terms of their copyrights. It provides them with additional financial benefits, certainly, but does it actually serve the purpose copyright laws were originally intended to serve?

In addition to being in favor of a ”copyright tax,” put me down as also being in favor of a “use it or lose it” rule for patents. Consider, for example, the long-term implications of this new patent. Sure, Microsoft claims that it has no interest in enforcing the patent—at least, not today. What does that mean for tomorrow? Look at what Microsoft has done with FAT and draw your own conclusions.