China E-commerce Info Tech Company has sued Microsoft (MSFT) for patent infringement because of the use of RSS within its Vista operating system.

According to local media, Wang Jianbo, the chairman of China E-commerce, stated the company applied for a patent for RSS service in 2005, and obtained the patent certificate in December 2007 from China's State Intellectual Property Office with patent number being No. ZL 2005 1 0022721.3. Wang says Microsoft adopted the technology in Vista without the company's authorization.

China E-commerce is a small company based in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Now the Xi'an Intermediate People's Court has accepted the case in which China E-commerce requests Microsoft to stop the infringement and stop selling Vista, which adopted RSS technology in China.

Microsoft reportedly responded to the issue last Friday, saying it has never violated the intellectual property rights of China E-commerce.

The specific patent is for "an XML-based RSS information interactive processing approach", according to information on the SIPO's website. RSS is used to syndicate XML-based files from blogs, websites, and other Internet platforms.