Sadly, M$ is more about extortion and control than it is about making anything useful. Business method and software patents are so hopelessly vague, TomTom’s GPS specific patents are sure to step all over those of other GPS companies. When M$ extorts fees other GPS makers, they will have TomTom’s patents in their back pocket to wave against countersuits. Five years from now, if M$ is still around, the agreement is over and M$ will be able to demand TomTom’s tithe. M$’s goal is to be able to charge people rent for free software and punish anyone that does not obey. In this way they would remain the “center of personal computing,” It’s blatantly anti-competitive and a clear admission of their own software’s second rate nature. M$ and other vendors have always depended on the vast productivity of the free software world, these lawsuits make their parasitic relationship obvious.

It will be difficult to find any business large enough to own software patents that’s brave enough to fight M$’s dying but still obnoxious FUD machine. Despite their apparent worthlessness, patents of any kind are expensive. It practically takes a public company to afford the wasteful process of owning patents and public companies are easily wounded by M$ spin about “weakness.” A kind of heroism is needed to eliminate business method and software patents once and for all, but it will be difficult to find in a company that has invested into the broken system.