Microsoft Corporation is a publicly traded multinational technology company founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, the company is a major force in the software industry and is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol MSFT. As of early 2026, Microsoft reported having 228,000 employees. For its 2025 fiscal year, the company posted revenues of $281.7 billion. Its market capitalization was approximately $3.08 trillion in May 2026.
Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products, services, and hardware devices. The company's core product lines include the Windows operating system, the Microsoft 365 and Office productivity suites (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), and the Azure cloud computing platform. In hardware, Microsoft is known for its Xbox video game consoles and the Surface line of personal computers. The company also operates in web services with its Bing search engine and the professional networking site LinkedIn.
As a major technology provider, Microsoft is frequently a defendant in patent litigation. The provided data shows Microsoft as a defendant in a case brought by Semantic Engines LLC. This posture as a target for litigation is typical for a large operating company. The single tracked case, Semantic Engines LLC v. Microsoft Corp, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, a venue known for patent litigation.
The case against Microsoft was filed on April 23, 2026, by Semantic Engines LLC. This lawsuit is representative of the challenges large technology firms face from entities that hold and assert patent rights. Microsoft is also involved in other high-profile intellectual property disputes, notably litigation concerning the training of artificial intelligence models, including a prominent copyright infringement lawsuit filed by The New York Times against Microsoft and its partner OpenAI.