Sean Lyndersay a member of the Microsoft RSS team has responded on the Microsoft Team RSS blog on the Microsoft RSS fiasco, and after reading the post I can tell he was painfully careful in his words.

According to Sean they are essentially claiming innovation in a number of areas, and while I do not see innovation in their application as their in my opinion is plenty of prior art this sadly this will be up to the patent office to determine.

What I would like to see though as others in the space have been calling for, is official assurance from a officer of the corporation that they are using the patent as a defensive filing only. [Microsoft Team RSS Blog]