Microsoft Sues Salesforce Over Enterprise Software Patents

Microsoft has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against enterprise software maker Salesforce.com, accusing it of using nine Microsoft patents in its products.

The lawsuit intensifies an on-going war as the two software makers rush to carve a niche for themselves in the cloud-based 'software as a service' (SaaS) domain.

Microsoft claims Salesforce has infringed patents relating to core software functionality and user interface.

The company has requested for a full-blown jury trial, and is demanding enormous monetary compensation as it believes Salesforce infringed the patents maliciously.

Patents that Salesforce is accused of infringing include methods for mapping between logical and physical data, methods for stacking toolbar, and the technology used to display a web page with an embedded menu.

Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy-general counsel for Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft said: “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.”