Israeli company says BITS, key part of update services and software, infringes on four patents

An Israeli firm has accused Microsoft Corp. of using its technologies in key components of Windows Update, court documents show.

BackWeb Technologies Ltd. filed its lawsuit in San Francisco federal court on Friday, charging that Microsoft's Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) infringes on several of its patents. BITS, which debuted in 2001 in Windows XP and is baked into Windows Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008, is a file-transfer service that can throttle back download speeds so they don't affect other network chores. Because of its duties -- it also resumes interrupted downloads -- BITS is a core part of Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services, and other Microsoft update and patching products.

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