From Fortune.com:

Microsoft suffered utter defeat at a crucial pretrial hearing in what appears to be the highest-stakes patent litigation ever—one in which a tiny company called InterTrust Technologies claims that 85% of Microsoft's entire product line infringes its digital security patents.

The article goes on to say that the company probably wouldn't settle the suit for anything less than a number starting with "B". Given the fact that a victory would mean InterTrust could demand a halt to the sales of such MS products as Windows XP, Office XP Suite, Windows Media Player, Xbox, and oh yeah, .NET, why would they?

InterTrust CEO Talal Shamoon asks rhetorically, "How much would that be worth to Microsoft?"

Mwahahahaha!