Now that the “first ever” suit for patent infringement has been lodged against two major Linux distributors, many Microsoft watchers are looking for the smoking gun that will somehow connect Microsoft to the case.

Microsoft was awarded more than 1,600 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2007, placing it sixth on the list of biggest patent performers, according to IFI Patent Intelligence, which tracks patent awards. IBM, which tried but failed to patent outsourcing last year, won the patent count for the 16th straight year, with more than 3,100 patents.

Last week's announcement of a patent infringement suit against Red Hat and Novell set in motion speculation about motives, theories, agendas, and behind-the-scenes players. If you've been feeling like you need a scorecard to keep up, then you're in luck.

Northeastern University and a start-up company cofounded by an associate professor have filed a patent-infringement suit against Google Inc., claiming that database technology patented in 1997 was misappropriated by the world's most popular Internet search service.

A Chinese Internet company has sued Microsoft for patent infringement over its use of RSS* in Windows Vista.

Can you believe it? This is so great!! Morrison & Foerster are representing TomTom in a new patent infringement lawsuit TomTom has just filed against Microsoft! I love covering their cases. Patent law is usually soooo boring to me, but these guys will keep me awake, and no doubt if I pay attention, I'll learn a lot.

The "Windows Vista Capable" lawsuit took another step toward trial—or settlement—Tuesday when US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman denied Microsoft's request for dismissal. The suit was filed in March by a pair of miffed PC buyers.

Now I'm not quite sure what to make of this at the moment but a United States-based Nigerian-owned company has sued OLPC for an alleged patent infringement about multilingual keyboard technology.

Microsoft filed suit against TomTom today, alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents -- including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel.