In MS's defense, often these sorts of patents are intended to fail so that nobody else can succeed subsequently. It's much cheaper to churn out designed-to-fail applications in areas you already dominate, especially since a patent application involves an examiner review that prevents claims you infringed knowingly if the examiner didn't spot the breach either. Now that software patents are reduced to anti-competitive maneuvering between big companies who like the staus quo because it also creates barriers for small dudes, only legislative change has a hope now- or collective defiance from the community if lawmakers are too busy arguing over whether Palin's baby actually is Bristol's.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1