In a patent application published last week, Microsoft Corporation's new verb-conjugation technology was revealed to the public. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0195313, entitled "Method and system for selecting and conjugating a verb," was published on August 31, 2006 and includes 20 claims on computer-readable media and methods in a computer system for conjugating a verb. The first method claim for conjugating verbs in a target language comprises "receiving a verb in a base language; identifying verb forms in the target language using a translation of the received verb from the base language to the target language; and displaying the identified verb forms in the target language." According to the patent application, prior art software tools may not identify all of the forms, tenses, and moods of a verb (for example, only the infinitive form of the verb may appear), and that "[i]t would be desirable to have a technique for overcoming these and other limitations of existing software tools for conjugating verbs." According to the InfoWorld article (link below), details regarding how this technology may be incorporated into one or more of Microsoft's product lines have not been disclosed.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0195313: LINK
InfoWorld Article: LINK