A federal judge has issued a critical ruling supporting a patent lawsuit against Microsoft brought by InterTrust, a digital rights management company. Cnet.com: In a crucial preliminary hearing aimed essentially at setting the ground rules for the trial itself, Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled strongly in favor of InterTrust Technologies. The company is suing Microsoft on 144 counts of patent infringement, contending that Microsoft products ranging from the Windows operating system to the Xbox game system violate its digital rights management patents. Although this is not the final verdict for the lawsuit , this hearing does improve InterTrust Technologies chances of winning greatly.