Folks over at tuxradar did this comparison a while ago. Here (http://www.tuxradar.com/content/browser-benchmarks-2-even-wine-beats-linux-firefox) are the results. No surprise that FF running under Wine beats native FF on linux

Well, M$ did throw 'a couple of mega bucks' to come up with Windows Vista. And everyone knows what 'merit' it had!

FYI the patent in question here was applied for in March 1994. So maybe this might not be proof enough of prior art.