Microsoft has 10,000 patent applications pending?

A story in InformationWeek suggests that Microsoft has 10,000 patent applications pending.

As posted below, Bill Gates had indicated on July 29, 2004 that Microsoft had 2,000 applications filed in fiscal 2004. Assuming that the number of filings in prior years were less than or equal to the filings in 2004, it is difficult to see how 10,000 applications are now pending, unless some of them are languishing at the Patent Office for a time longer than the three year average.