Salesforce.com Inc., the enterprise cloud computing company, has filed a patent- infringement lawsuit in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware against Microsoft Corp., according to businessweek.com.

 

Industry experts feel that this may escalate a fight between the two companies over the growing market for cloud-computing software.

 

Salesforce.com (News - Alert) in the complaint said that Microsoft's products such as .Net platform and SharePoint perform in a way that violates the Salesforce.com patents, and the "risk of infringement was either known or so obvious that it should have been known by Microsoft (News - Alert)."

 

"Microsoft has incorporated Salesforce.com's patented technology into its services and products," the enterprise cloud computing company has said in the lawsuit.

 

As reported, the complaint is in response to a patent-infringement lawsuit Microsoft filed in May against Salesforce.com, in which Microsoft targeted Salesforce.com's customer-relationship management software and sought a court order that would prevent the company from providing features that Microsoft claims it invented.

 

Refusing to comment on the matter, Salesforce.com spokeswoman Jane Hynes said that the company doesn't comment on pending litigation. "We will let our court filings speak for themselves," Hynes said in an interview.

 

Meanwhile, Microsoft is said to be reviewing the Salesforce.com complaint. "We remain confident in our position and will continue to press ahead with the complaint filed in federal court in Seattle," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for intellectual property.

 

Salesforce.com, which sells subscriptions to business software that runs marketing campaigns and tracks sales leads using the Internet, competes with Microsoft's Dynamics programs.

 

The complaint seeks a court order that would prevent Microsoft's further use of Salesforce.com products, plus unspecified cash compensation.