One of the things customers of Microsoft products "benefit from" is being covered by their IP indemnity policy‡.

For large enterprises deploying stuff with Microsoft kit, that's a pretty big benefit.

‡ http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-4... (link downloads a DOC file, sorry, couldn't find it online)

That's shades of SCO and I don't like it one bit.

I think indemnifying your customers from IP lawsuits when they use your product/technology isn't a bad thing.

It's the carrot at the end of the FUD. "If you buy our stuff, you'll be safe from someone suing."

"What's that, still going to use Unix? Well you'd better at least buy from Novell, as they've signed an agreement protecting you from being sued."

It's not "shades of SCO", it's the other side of the same coin.

Has there been any instance of this patent protection actually coming into effect? I would have thought this would just have led to multiple trolls targetting Microseft customers to access Microsoft's deep pockets.

Since I've not heard of this happening I'm inclined to believe this is a hollow offer.

I don't know of any (although I confess to not following this stuff that closely).

Conspiracy-theorists could probably find something interesting in the fact that in general Microsoft seems to be mostly left alone by patent trolls.

What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas ?

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4i