At the end of a week filled with more chest-thumping and FUD-spewing by software's self-appointed patent sheriffs, two of Linux's major players have been slapped with a patent infringement lawsuit. Friday's suit marks the first time Linux patents have ever been challenged in court.

A company that was just awarded more than $140 million from Microsoft in a patent-infringement suit has sued the software giant again, this time for alleged infringements in Windows Vista and Office 2007.

This could get interesting. HTC has filed its answer to Apple's complaint [PDFs] against them for patent infringement, with affirmative defenses and counterclaims.

Now that the “first ever” suit for patent infringement has been lodged against two major Linux distributors, many Microsoft watchers are looking for the smoking gun that will somehow connect Microsoft to the case.

IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state. And now let's play, where's Microsoft?

There’s a rumour circulating that Ubuntu is in discussions with Microsoft aimed at an agreement along the lines they have concluded recently with Linspire, Xandros, Novell etc. Unfortunately, some speculation in the media (thoroughly and elegantly debunked in the blogosphere but not before the damage was done) posited that “Ubuntu might be next”.

Northeastern University and a start-up company cofounded by an associate professor have filed a patent-infringement suit against Google Inc., claiming that database technology patented in 1997 was misappropriated by the world's most popular Internet search service.

And so the suing continues. Apple and Nokia aren't particularly friendly towards one another as of late, with both companies accusing each other of infringing upon one another's patents.

Can you believe it? This is so great!! Morrison & Foerster are representing TomTom in a new patent infringement lawsuit TomTom has just filed against Microsoft! I love covering their cases. Patent law is usually soooo boring to me, but these guys will keep me awake, and no doubt if I pay attention, I'll learn a lot.