Microsoft Corp. illegally took technology used to link spreadsheet data between two of its programs from a Guatemalan inventor, lawyers said during opening statements at a jury trial that started on Tuesday. Carlos Armando Amado said in a lawsuit that he filed for a patent in 1990 for software that links Microsoft's Excel program with its Access database application via a single spreadsheet, and that he unsuccessfully tried to sell it to Microsoft two years later. Amado is seeking damages that could exceed $500 million in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Central California. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, began using his software without permission in various versions of Access, such as Access 95, 97, 2000 and 2002, according to Amado, who said he created the technology while he was a graduate student at Stanford University.

Let's get this straight. *SOMEONE ELSE* gets a patent covering the concept of one of Microsoft's programs reading files written by another program of Microsoft's???

I am a linux user, and wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft drop down to maybe 25% market share. But this software patent garbage is totally insane, berserk, idiotic, and stupid. What we're seeing here has nothing what-so-ever to do with real invention. It's all about shyster lawyers throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks. Software patents must die, or else North America will become a technological backwater.

While we're at it, Microsoft isn't exactly innocent. After a lot of work by a lot of people, developing the XML standard, Microsoft has patented the concept of doing what XML was designed to do, i.e. store various forms of data.