WinInsider

WSJ: Microsoft Faces Unprecedented Number of Patent Infringement Suits
You know, someone should note the irony of Microsoft, a company getting flack from users and the press for protecting company's intellectual property (IP) through the use of DRM, being repeatedly accused of violating the IP of its partners and competitors. Oh wait, I just did. Anyway, according to an interesting Wall Street Journal report, Microsoft has been accused of patent infringement at least 35 times in the past four years, compared to just seven suits in the previous 22 years. This year alone, the company has at least 8 patent infringement suits awaiting trial. But Microsoft has done well in such cases, and has only lost one patent infringement suit, against Stac Electronics, back in 1994. Are companies pursuing litigation over competition, or are these cases valid protection of core company assets? I guess time will tell.

Steve Jobs Resigns ... From the Gap Board
Now close friends Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Apple CEO Steve Jobs have yet another thing in common: They've both been forced to resign from a company's board of directors because the corporate buddy-buddy days are over in the wake of the Enron, Worldcom, and AOL accounting scandals. Jobs abruptly resigned from the board of Gap, Inc., less than a week after a Business Week article called the board among America's worst, because such companies have "too many company insiders as members, and [failed] to notice or stop abuses that were happening under their noses." Ellison also abruptly left his position on Apple's board of directors, another company that was, coincidentally or not, listed as one of America's worst.