IANAL, but this seems ludicrous on its face. The patent app was filed in 2008, and Bissantz has prior art back to at least 2006 (see, e.g., http://www.juiceanal

IANAL, but this seems ludicrous on its face. The patent app was filed in 2008, and Bissantz has prior art back to at least 2006 (see, e.g., http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/sparklines-in-excel-simplicity-itself/ http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/sparklines-in-excel-si...). However, my half-assed OpenOffice version (http://joeganley.com/2008/10/sparklines-in-openoffice-calc.html http://joeganley.com/2008/10/sparklines-in-openoffice-calc.h...) postdates the patent app. It would amuse me if I were in violation of a Microsoft patent.