Re: MS will be forced to refund extorted fees

Erm, no, they're not. Their obliged to maximize their profits (in the US), and some use patent law (as one judge has clearly pointed out) as a negotiating element in order to do that, but they are in no way obliged by law to defend their patents. Indeed, one of the ways companies have been trying to make money recently is by deliberately failing to defend their patents until they've become industry standard, and then selectively enforcing the patent with companies they need business leverage over (again, as the last paragraph in the article highlights).

Now, in fairness it's possible you're mistaking patents for trademarks (this kind of thing happens when people use the nebulous term 'IP' outside of networking protocol discussions), where a company is obliged to defend their trademark or risk losing it. The same does not apply to patents, which can be selectively enforced, or not enforced at all, but the patent holder will continue to hold the patent.