Microsoft's Games for Windows team plans to roll out new piracy protections aimed at preventing people from playing copies of games that leak out prior to their release, Ars Technica reports today from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. "The bits are encrypted, and there is a one-time activation that checks to see if the game has been released or not, and we'll send out a decrypt code so the game can be played," Microsoft's Drew Johnston tells Ars.

A new book, "Burning the Ships," details the evolution of Microsoft's approach to patents -- a timely topic given the company's TomTom litigation. The authors are Marshall Phelps, Microsoft's corporate vice president for intellectual property policy and strategy, and journalist David Kline. I'm reading it now. CNet's Ina Fried has extracted tidbits on Microsoft's negotiations with Toshiba and Novell.

A new post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog goes into detail -- lots of it -- on the touch-related features planned for the upcoming operating system.

Microsoft is working with the open-source Eclipse Foundation but doesn't plan to become a member, according to this InfoWorld report. On the broader subject of Microsoft's relationship with the open-source community, also see this post by Matt Asay on his CNet blog.

BackWeb Technologies has sued Microsoft for patent infringement, targeting the Redmond company's Automatic Update technology.

And finally, Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Watch offers up a funny list of suggested gifts for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer upon his 53rd birthday.