Salesforce hits back in Microsoft patent case

Enterprise software as a service (SaaS) giant Salesforce.com has reportedly countersued Microsoft, escalating the two companies' ongoing patent dispute.

According to a report from Bloomberg News, Salesforce filed the suit in a Delaware district court in the US, alleging that Microsoft had infringed on its patents for products such as .Net and Sharepoint.

The suit comes little more than one month after Microsoft filed a similar suit. That filing accuses Salesforce of lifting Microsoft patents to create menus and interface components for its flagship hosted customer relationship management (CRM) offerings.

Microsoft has in recent years stepped up efforts to make deals to expand and protect its patent portfolio. The company has had a long-running patent sharing deal with Novell along with other vendors such as LCD builder Funai and printer vendor Brother.

The filing from Salesforce adds the two companies to an ongoing list of technology firms currently caught up in patent wars. Apple and HTC remain entangled in a dispute over smartphone handset patents, while nearly a dozen major firms are the target of a suit over Bluetooth technologies.