I think this is going to go one of two ways:
1. Microsoft wins the patent argument and the lawsuits come down to companies, universities, government agencies, etc where it serves to motivate the government to reduce the power and scope of software patents. Which hurts Microsoft and opens them up to attack on the software front because of weak patents.
2. Microsoft loses because of IBM, etc -- and opens up it's own litigation nightmare. IBM probably owns more patents that Microsoft infringes than Microsoft owns patents.
there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500). The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.
The conflict pits Microsoft and its dogged CEO, Steve Ballmer, against the "free world" - people who believe software is pure knowledge. The leader of that faction is Richard Matthew Stallman, a computer visionary with the look and the intransigence of an Old Testament prophet.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm
