[Alpine]

A FIRM called Visto has sued Microsoft for allegedly breaching patents it owns.



The twist comes because NTP, which is pursuing a court case against Research in Motion (RIM), took an equity stake in Visto yesterday.

It's alleged that the Vole used patents Visto owns for mobile phones and PDAs.

Visto said that it wants a permanent injunction against Microsoft. CEO Brian Bogosian said: "Microsoft has a long and well documented history of acquiring the technology of others, branding it is as their own, and entering new markets."

He alleged in a statement that: "For their foray into mobile email and data access, Microsoft simply decided to misappropriate Visto's well known and documented patent technology."

The law case was filed in a Texas court and covers patents numbered 6,085,192; 6,708,221; and 6,151,606. Visto licenses its technology to a number of big players including Cingular, Sprint Nextel, Rogers Wireless and others.

The INQuirer