James Niccolai and Tom Krazit

Visto Corp. has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp., accusing it of improper use of patented Visto technologies in Microsoft's software for accessing e-mail from phones and other wireless devices. The action kicks off another legal battle in the wireless e-mail market. Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) is currently defending a suit brought by NTP Inc., which says RIM used NTP technology patents illegally in RIM's BlackBerry e-mail devices. Just yesterday, Visto said it had licensed those patents from NTP.