A 10-piece sampler from Microsoft's gushing patent pipeline

Over the past two months, Microsoft again has been making noise with its patent portfolio, first garnering its 10,000th patent in February and then suing TomTom over alleged patent infringement. And over the past two years, Microsoft has topped the IEEE Patent Pipeline Power ranking.

But the company this week also saw the knife cut the other way when Paltalk, a company that specializes in Internet chat service, sued Microsoft for US$90 million over alleged patent infringement related to technologies used in Halo that lets users host and participate in online games.

But Microsoft is clearly "beginning to treat its burgeoning patent portfolio as a revenue-generating business," analyst firm Gartner said last week. Gartner also said it has little doubt that Microsoft will switch to playing offense with its patent interests. With the economic downturn continuing, Microsoft is not alone in protecting its commercial interests and exploring ways to garner revenue.

Here is a look at the 10 most recent patent applications from Microsoft, which were made public for the first time March 12 during the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) weekly publication of patent applications. Per USPTO rules, patent applications are made public roughly 18 months after they are submitted.

Title: Proxy engine for custom handling of Web content

Overview: Processes and techniques for protecting Web users from malicious executable code. A proxy engine intercepts communications between a Web browser and a script engine. The proxy engine can invoke a variety of custom event handlers (e.g., script events) that occur in the processing of Web content. A script shield event handler detects the presence of script in pre-defined script-free zones and prevents the script from being executed on a user's device.

Filed: Sept. 6, 2007

Inventors: Xiaofeng Fan, Jiahe Helen Wang.

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