I participated in many battles directly against Microsoft in the Ballmer era, 1998-2014. Every Samba feature release seem to further anger Microsoft. Copyright and then especially patents were weaponised, as well as well-funded hit teams aimed at spreading confusion and intimidating their own (Microsoft’s!) customers. In the Nadalla era from 2014-present, Microsoft and other tech giants are using even more brutal ways to extract money from the citizens and governments of the world.

Here is the PDF for my Ballmer-era Microsoft patent examination process. It is for companies/developers wanting to implement a Microsoft protocol. This is still valid, but it is even more complicated and ferocious in 2026.

The immediate urgency of the software patent issue went away following US supreme court decisions, but they persist in a worse fashion in Europe now.

If you are a rights holder or developer of non-physical IP, the protective actions available to you vary depending on your circumstances, but include:

  • join and/or contribute to patent pools especially the Open Invention Network. If you run an open source project you should be at least speaking with a patent pool. Hopefully a patent pool will allow you to completely avoid the difficult and time-consuming steps listed on this page.
  • approach one of the several organisations who exist to provide pro bono advice to open source software developers
  • scrutinise licenses from the point of view of patents. This is what I have had to do repeatedly (despite also following the previous two points.)

Here is an excerpt from my process, after navigating whether your code is covered by a safe exemption:

From one of the previous steps you have a list of patents that appear to be relevant to your work implementing protocols. Microsoft has patents which it claims covers protocols you think are the same or similar to protocols you have implement. Your list consists only of patents that Microsoft are claiming read on that protocol, and which Microsoft say they will enforce, noting the various complicated exceptions given in steps 1 and 2. You have considered territorial implications, and from this point on you are in a standard patent evaluation scenario.

Get a software patent lawyer:

❌ A developer is not a software patent lawyer. ❌ A commercial lawyer is not a software patent lawyer. ❌ A patent lawyer is not a software patent lawyer.

Your task is to compare three things with each other:

  • technical descriptions in the patent, with
  • the technical description in your code, with
  • the technical description in the Microsoft protocol specification

Any of these might express the same concept in very different ways, or may just seem to.

Good luck.