http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-6046484.html
"Microsoft plans to announce on Tuesday that it has been granted its 5,000th U.S. patent"
"The company, which a decade ago filed only a few hundred patent applications per year, now annually files roughly 3,000 applications.
That filing rate is unlikely to climb much higher, said Bart Eppenauer, the Microsoft lawyer who heads the company's patent effort."
2GET