What sort of patents has MS exercised in this fashion? They've shown some amazing tech demos over the past 4-5 years and a lot of them have materialized in to actual products. Even perhaps the biggest 'demo noshow' has been used: Surface (i.e., the surface of 4 years ago).
> What sort of patents has MS exercised in this fashion?
Ask manufacturers of Android phones how Microsoft exercises its patents.
> a lot of them have materialized in to actual products.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20064439-75.html
"A little more than three years after opening Pioneer Studios, a skunkworks operation to develop consumer electronics and experiences, Microsoft has closed the unit"
"The ill-fated Courier tablet--something of a dual-screen tablet that predated Apple's iPad--emerged from Pioneer."
"the group zeroed in on opportunities that offered revenue opportunities north of $100 million a year. And because the group focused on those opportunities so early, it had a 20 percent success rate."
This can be construed as either a positive or a negative. It's positive if the R&D has a particularly focused scope, resulting in coherent products/technologies that actually hit the market. Often when there's a lack of vision a company (Microsoft is a great example) will produce a plethora of solutions in search of a problem and patent the shit out of everything along the way.
Hopefully this isn't a case of lack of vision where Apple is throwing crap at the wall until they find something that sticks and packing IP in the piggy bank for future lawsuits. Big R&D budgets can be a sign of this. We'll see.