Just read on the heise ticker, that
Microsoft got a patent to store a session ID in a cookie and the SID-related data on the server.
So this is like one of the most basic features of any personalized webpage, or even the most basic setup of PHP sessions. Even though I doubht that Microsoft will use that for patent sueing, a patent like this should not be able to get.
Every judge should easily see, that their way is common practice and can't really be done in another way. This is exactly, why IT-Patents should not be given in Europe, just as they are (currently still?)
discussed in Europe.
There's no bright future ahead for E-Development and Free Software, if that gets common practice.
I should think about getting a patent for sending electronical representations of characters through different servers.