Despite the fact that Microsoft has had patent infringement safeguards since long, and, often it wins infringement cases that small companies file against it, two recent cases have depicted the software giant's vulnerability to infringement allegations, the problems that the supposedly small companies can cause.

While in April Microsoft lost a patent infringement case against computer security company Uniloc, and was ordered by a Rhode Island court to pay Uniloc $388 million in damages; on August 11, the software giant lost another patent infringement case filed by Toronto-based software firm i4i - this time a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas ordered an injunction against sale of Microsoft's Word software, along with asking Microsoft to pay $290 million in damages to i4i.

However, in an Emergency Motion filed against the ruling on August 18, Microsoft has sought an an immediate stay of the Word injunction.

The two mentioned cases an indication that though Microsoft has been trying to avoid patent infringement cases - by issuing more patents on its inventions and cautiously establishing licensing agreements with other companies - its patent defense appears to have gone amiss!

Not for nothing has Rob Enderle, president of consulting company the Enderle Group, said that it is companies like i4i and Uniloc "against which the Microsoft patent portfolio defense should work!"