In the latest round of intimidation charades, Microsoft seems to respond to some claims made by Linus that Microsoft probably violated many patents.

Microsoft: If we're violating IP, 'we'll take a license'

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Now, courtesy of the same Microsoft public-relations representative who provided us press/blogger folks with Microsoft’s full statement on May 14 on its latest patent-infringement claims, here are a couple more Microsoft sound bites on this issue.

The company still seems to believe that it can impose innovation tax, as the following from Sun Microsystsms explains.

Last month, we were hit with two new patent troll cases. With each, there was no warning, no offer to license - just a lawsuit. And, who are these "aggrieved" plaintiffs? In the first case, the litigant is a company called "Exponential Systems". Exponential alleges that our Sun Grid Compute Utility infringes their patents. So who is spuroAre they creators of competing technology? Do they invest in R&D? Do they create products and jobs that add value to society? Hard to tell, but I doubt it. All we know is that the original patents were owned by a company called "Hemisphere II Investments", which then transferred the patents to Exponential for the grand sum of $5.

Seriously. We are being dragged into expensive litigation and this is all we know about the other party. Even more frustrating is that one of the primary goals of our Sun Grid is to drive down the cost of computing. I've written previously about this tax on innovation. This is a real example.

Software patents do not make sense. Nobody wants them or needs them, except those who try to protect a monopoly that can afford spurious paperwork.