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Fuck off, twitter. This has nothing to do with MSFT, and everything to do with our rights as Canadian citizens and consumers. Please, take your anti-corporate rants elsewhere.

The FTC put a stop to Negotiated Data Solutions (AKA N-Data), a patent troll that bought a patent on an important part of the Ethernet networking standard and tried to jack up the royalties for licensing it. In a consent decree [PDF], N-Data agreed to continue licensing the patent at the formerly promised rates. The IEEE voted back in 2002 to make patent letters irrevocable, which could have prevented this, but neglected to make that clause retroactive.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080123-ftc-defends-ethernet-forces-patent-troll-back-under-bridge.html