Microsoft's patent has 20 claims, and only two of them don't refer to other claims (claim 1 and claim 12). The way patents work is, if you can get around claim 1 or claim 12, or in this case claim 1, you have gotten around the patent. Moreover, if you can get around any part or claim 1, then you've gotten around the patent.
I'm not a lawyer, but I can think of a few possible ways to get around claim 1.
The definition of "electronic document" is nonobvious. Is a web page a document? Document sounds like something in a word processor (which is what is addressed in claim 12).
An essential part of claim 1 is "determining whether a request to emphasize all of the numerical data [...] has been received". Me writing a Perl script which highlights numbers in a web page, then posting that web page, does not infringe the claim, so long as (e.g.) there's no button on a web page that I can click to highlight the numbers. In other words, if I run my script once and post the highlighted web page statically, then I haven't violated the patent.
It might even be possible to have a menu option which deemphasizes non-numerical data, rather than emphasizing the numerical data.
The claim says the system both receives the request, and then highlights the data. If I write a routine which only highlights the data, but doesn't process a request to highlight the data, I've not violated the patent.
The phrase "numerical data" is ambiguous. It sounds like it might refer to actual data, e.g., numbers reported in a table of measurements. They try to get around this with later claims, but if I can show claim 1 is invalid, later claims which refer to claim 1 are irrelevant.
If none of these work, then if this actually becomes a patent, and it actually goes to a lawsuit, there's probably a ton of prior art that'll render it irrelevant.
In fact, perhaps the patent examiners would like to know of the Perl regexp someone kindly posted. This could prevent it from becoming a patent in the first place.
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I'm not a lawyer, but I can think of a few possible ways to get around claim 1.
If none of these work, then if this actually becomes a patent, and it actually goes to a lawsuit, there's probably a ton of prior art that'll render it irrelevant.
In fact, perhaps the patent examiners would like to know of the Perl regexp someone kindly posted. This could prevent it from becoming a patent in the first place.