Salesforce.com Sues Microsoft in Counter To Earlier Patent Suit

Salesforce.com has sued Microsoft for patent infringement in what appears to be a move aimed at countering Microsoft's suit brought in May against the on-demand CRM and cloud application vendor.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court for the District of Delaware, identifies .NET and SharePoint collaboration software as infringing on its own patents.  The complaint states that the "risk of infringement was either known or so obvious that it should have been known by Microsoft."

The complaint seeks a court order that would prevent Microsoft's further use of Salesforce.com patented technology, plus unspecified cash compensation.

Some specific targets of the suit include:

• Windows Server AppFabric (US Patent 6,813,633), which it claims Microsoft has "known of...and has studied";
• Windows Error Reporting system for Window 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (US Patent 6,918,059)
• Microsoft SharePoint (US Patent 7,024,454),which it also claims Microsoft "encouraged others to use ... in an infinging manner";
• the Microsoft .NET platform (US Patent 7,209,929);
• Windows Live Delegated Authentication system (US Patent 7,305,454);

Microsof says it is reviewing the Salesforce.com filing, which it just received. "We remain confident in our position and will continue to press ahead with the complaint we initiated in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for intellectual property, in a statement.