Microsoft has reached a settlement in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed last year by Vertical Computer Systems, according to a filing by the mediator in the case: PDF, 1 page. The Fort Worth, Texas, company's complaint alleged that Microsoft's .Net development system violated a patent issued to Vertical in November 2004.
Here is a good new video that demonstrates how patent trolls and their little extortions come about. ⬆
They don't care about the users and issuing a few bytes with random characters costs them next to nothing. It gives them control over billions of human beings.
If even one media outlet told you in 2010 that Microsoft would fall from 100% (of Web requests) to about 1 in 8 Web requests, you'd probably struggle to believe it