OK. While I agree that there *may* possibly be identical code, the next question would be "in which direction was the copying done?" The SCO case proved that while SCO claimed infringement, and showed a little code, it was proved that the SCO code was newer than the Linux code--hence it was *SCO* that was copying from the GPL code.
With patents, it doesn't really matter who wrote it first--only who owns the patent. So the next step would be to determine if the patent is valid--and there are many who believe that a lot of MS' patents are not valid.
So any case MS would bring will be an interesting case study in all this and the finer points of patent law.
No doubt Microsoft intends to plumb the depths eh!