Microsoft infringes on all our innovation

ZDNet:s Mary-Jo Foley reports that Microsoft sues Sales Force for patent infringements. This is a new and offensive course for Microsoft. Exposing patents is more straightforward than just rattling them for payments as we are used see in these cases. I like that the supposed "innovation" shows after Apple did the same thing.

The Microsoft PR says:
"Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software industry for decades and continues to invest billions of dollars each year in bringing great software products and services to market. 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."

So its time to review that leadership by looking at the patents in question. Can we expect Microsoft to prove its innovation claim?
-Well...  The patents are better described as an infringement on innovation. Its as horrible as we could expect. But could we have asked for more? ZDNet lists them (I add links for each of them):

• 7,251,653 “method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data”
• 5,742,768 “system and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu”
• 5,644,737 “method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display”
• 6,263,352 “automated web site creation using template driven generation of active server page applications”
• 6,122,558 “aggregation of system settings into objects”
• 6,542,164 “timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information”
• 6,281,879 “method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer”
• 5,941,947 “system and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network”

They are just as broad and trivial as in what you guess from the titles. Innovations... its just the opposite.

Update:
TechDirt: Microsoft Decides It Can't Compete With Salesforce.com; Sues For Patent Infringement Instead

/jonas