Hopefully there will be a battle. But as I recall from a live SHM, Fred said that Microsoft had been shown the tech ( along with others ~ 50 ). [My wonder is do we have some backing now with Google from the settlement or have we had backing from MSFT for sometime now? Or have we not had backing from any of the big players up until this point or a few weeks ago? ] .

If MSFT wants to see the settlement agreement with Google, my guess would be that they would have to put up some money in an offer agreement and sign a non-disclosure agreement. ( I believe they had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to see the tech in the first place.)