June 28, 2010 - Just a few weeks after calling Microsoft a "patent troll," Salesforce.com has responded in kind by filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft over five of its patents, claiming in the complaint that the “risk of infringement was either known or so obvious that it should have been known by Microsoft.”
The patents in suit are used in Microsoft's .NET and SharePoint products.
Microsoft threw the first punch in May, accusing Salesforce of infringing nine patents, including a “Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display” and a “System and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network.” That case is Microsoft Corp. v. Salesforce.com Inc., 10cv825, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle).