The results of the transfer of Silicon Graphics' 3D patent portfolio to Microsoft have begun to show up in the US Patent Office database. Last October, SGI revealed a payment of $62.5 million from Microsoft for "non core" intellectual property. In January, we explained what this was.

The US Patent Office now shows three patent applications assigned to Microsoft Corp. which were invented at SGI by SGI employees. None of the inventors has worked for Microsoft.

The three patents are 6,362,828 ("Method and system for dynamic texture replication on a distributed memory graphics architecture") filed on June 24 1999 by David L Morgan; 6,369,814 ("Transformation pipeline for computing distortion correction geometry for any design eye point, display surface geometry, and projector position") filed on March 26 1999 by Angus M Dorbie; and 6,373,482 ("Method, system, and computer program product for modified blending between clip-map tiles") filed on December 23 1998 by Christopher J Migdel [sic] and Don Freeman Hatch. "Migdel" is a typo, it's actually Migdal, as his previous patent filings and another published paper confirms.