Microsoft patent case against TomTom

Link 1 ZDNET

Link 2 ZDNET

Link 3  The Register

This is a hot intellectual property story doing the rounds at the moment.  It has certainly created a lot of attention (and anger!) which is apparent in the hundreds of comments left on the above linked news sites.  In short a patent infringement case has been filed by Microsoft against TomTom (the makers of in-car sat nav systems).  However, the real “story” seems to be a larger issue being described as “the first shot fired by Microsoft vs. Free Software” (see full blog posting).  This in turn is making some nervous that Linux might be next in the firing line (see item here) It’s going to be one to watch for those involved in open source-projects.