Microsoft launches patent suit at Salesforce cloud
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Microsoft has sued Salesforce.com, claiming that the cloudy outfit has infringed on its patents.
Microsoft filed suit with a US court seeking a trial, damages, and costs, saying Silicon-Valley software-as-as-service posterchild Salesforce.com violated nine patents.
Microsoft's deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement that the Salesforce.com's CRM product infringed on the company's patents.
The patents cover construction of a websites without coding, mapping between logical and physical data, remote software calls, the placement of objects on a screen, and control of the display. You can read Microsoft's filing here (pdf).
"We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard that investment, and therefore cannot stand idly by when others infringe our IP rights,' Gutierrez said.
Salesforce.com declined to comment.
Microsoft has a history of aggressively pursuing companies that it believes have infringed on it patents. Usually, the company seeks legal remedy or ongoing royalties for patents use.
Recently, Microsoft has focused its attention on those using Linux. Last year, it brought a suit against sat-nav specialist TomTom, and this year, it signed smartphone maker HTC to a patent protection deal. HTC makes phones for Google using its Android Linux.
Microsoft is also familiar with being on the sharp end of patent litigation. The company is currently getting its pants dusted by i2i Technologies over alleged patent infringement by Word. ®
COMMENTS
May I be the first to say..
You didn't invent it. You didn't make any important discoveries with it. Just like all your other "inventions", you simply stole, extended, and bullied anyone that claimed they did it first.
Grow up (tm).
Forgive my lack of legal knowledge,
But when do registered patents actually expire? As noted by others, all this stuff is as old as the hills.
Maybe a quick fix to the patent system that wouldn't cost millions of dollars would be to limit software patents to five years - enough time to get a marketing lead, but not enough time to troll.
PDF Warning....
You should warn about the contents of the PDF.
Patents for : "a Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display" ,"a system and method for providing and displaying a web page with an embedded menu" , "Aggregation of system settings into objects". "Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information"
I think I need to go and lie down.
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