Does someone know the backstory on Groklaw? From the domain name, I presume I'm supposed to trust them about legal issues; that, for instance, they might have some legal training.
If they do, it's not in evidence here. "Dude. It's sudo. With a GUI. For dummies." Presumably, the author knows that it's valid to take an existing idea and patent an improvement on it.
The author also wisecracks about the likelihood that Microsoft wants to collect a "toll" on everyone else's use of sudo. Leaving aside the fact that Microsoft isn't patenting sudo, surely the author realizes that if Microsoft wanted to patent troll the rest of the industry, they have a huge arsenal of far better patents to do it with?