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Facebook Huddles with Patent Vampire
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| After leaving Microsoft, Myhrvold went into the patent business. His
| Intellectual Ventures works like this: Buy up patents, then use them to
| bludgeon large tech companies into forking over fees or making investments in
| Intellectual Ventures.
|
| In the course of his short career, Zuckerberg, as a tipster reminded us, has
| accumulated a nice array of patents. They're related, as you might guess, to
| social networking and digital media. Could he use them against his rivals via
| Myhrvold, raising some money for Facebook in the process?
`----
http://gawker.com/5313640/facebook-huddles-with-patent-vampire
Recent:
Don't Feed the Super-Troll
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| As with all patent trolls, the danger is that the more companies accept these
| proffered licensing deals, the stronger the trolls become. I imagine we'll
| see many more such stories leaking out as Intellectual Ventures gains in
| confidence and ambition.
|
| The big problem is not only that Myhrvold's an ex-Microsoftie, but that
| Microsoft is also an investor in the company; this means that we are not
| going to see Microsoft on the receiving end of Intellectual
| Venture's “offers”. But there is a very real danger that at some point the
| larger supporters of open source will be.
|
| [...]
|
| Expect, then, Mr Myhrvold to emerge as public enemy number one for the free
| software community; it's just a matter of time now that the super-troll has
| awoken from its deep slumbers and started to feed on those that foolishly
| fail to defend themselves.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=2317
Patent Reform & Campaign Cash
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| An article in CongressDaily's AM Edition on Friday notes that Rep. Dana
| Rohrabacher, R-Calif., is an opponent of legislation intended to rework how
| patents are granted and litigated in the United States. Rohrabacher said at a
| House Science Committee hearing that the measures currently moving through
| the House and Senate have been driven by major high-tech firms that
| are "trying to destroy the patent system." The story points out that
| Rohrabacher's top 2008 campaign donor was Intellectual Ventures, a firm
| founded by Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft executive who has been highly
| critical of changing the patent system. He also accepted money from
| manufacturers -- another sector that has panned portions of the legislation.
`----
http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2009/05/patent-reform-campaign-cash.php
The real patent threat: Not Microsoft
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| Hence, while the open-source world is up in arms about Microsoft's TomTom
| patent suit, it should be far more worried about news that Intellectual
| Ventures has grabbed another 500 patents through a deal with Telcordia
| Technologies, as TechFlash reports. Intellectual Ventures, arguably the
| world's largest patent troll, is set up to do nothing more than license its
| intellectual property, which it has done to the tune of hundreds of millions
| of dollars.
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10172590-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Intellectual Ventures adds to patent pile with new deal
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| Intellectual Ventures is adding to its huge pile of patents. The
| Bellevue-based firm, founded by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, is
| today announcing a partnership with broadband company Telcordia Technologies,
| giving it access to more than 500 Telcordia patents. Intellectual Ventures
| has also pledged to fund Telcordia research and development.
`----
http://www.techflash.com/Intellectual_Ventures_40298142.html
Checking in on Nathan Myhrvold
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| I'd suggest the business be called Intellectual Vultures' ... because that is
| exactly what Nathan is bringing to the table - nothing. This business model
| stifles and prevents creative idea, and is yet another made up securities
| model that preys on other people's legitimate hard work.
|
| When he was at Microsoft, he had zero practical ideas and I see he's still
| doing the same, only this time, he's screwing the whole public. This business
| is living on the backs of other people because they don't know how to spell
| the word ‘innovation'. How about coming up with an original and useful idea
| and earn it the old fashion way?
|
| Nathan should be ashamed of this practice and he should be investigated by
| the FTC for predatory business practices.
`----
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/149104.asp?source=rss
Nathan Myhrvold’s Patent Extortion Fund Is Reaping Hundreds Of Millions of
Dollars
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| Don’t blame Nathan Myhrvold for taking advantage of the culture of rampant
| patent litigation in this country. He is only doing what large companies with
| vast patent portfolios such as IBM and Microsoft do on a daily basis: use the
| threat of patent infringement litigation to strike lucrative patent licensing
| deals. Except Myhrvold, who used to be Bill Gates’ right-hand man at
| Microsoft during the 1990s, does it through his patent-gobbling fund,
| Intellectual Ventures.
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/nathan-myhrvolds-patent-extortion-fund-is-reaping-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars/
Invention Capitalism & the Law: Checking in on Nathan Myhrvold
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| Myhrvold told the WSJ that he acknowledges facing resistance from companies
| he targets for licenses. But his patent inventory gives him leverage to
| extract settlements without litigation. “I say, ‘I can’t afford to sue you on
| all of these, and you can’t afford to defend on all these,’” he said.
`----
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/09/17/invention-capitalism-the-law-checking-in-on-nathan-myhrvold/
Nathan Myhrvold: Alpha patent troll?
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| Former Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold has been collecting patents, extracting
| fees from technology companies via his company Intellectual Ventures. Is
| Myhrvold a patent troll with tech cred?
|
| The Wall Street Journal has a long account of Myhrvold’s patent collecting
| efforts and how he is winning multimillion dollar payments from the likes of
| Verizon and Cisco. These payments are top secret material, but Myhrvold’s
| firm is the one reaping the rewards. Intellectual Ventures has more than
| 20,000 patents. In many respects, Myhrvold is just a patent trader. A few
| lawsuits could define him as a troll quickly though.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10069
Tech Guru Riles the Industry
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| Over the past few years, the former Microsoft Corp. executive has quietly
| amassed a trove of 20,000-plus patents and patent applications related to
| everything from lasers to computer chips. He now ranks among the world's
| largest patent-holders -- and is using that clout to press tech giants to
| sign some of the costliest patent-licensing deals ever negotiated.
`----
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122161127802345821.html
Patent startup gains high profile backing
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| John Amster, one of two former Intellectual Ventures executives that formed
| RPX, said he will not detail the company's business model or customers until
| October. However he did say RPX will acquire patents in a broad range of
| technology and e-commerce areas, especially when the patents are being
| asserted or involved in litigation.
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http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=Y5PML15MGOPIQQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=210602186
Transcript: Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures
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| Nathan Myhrvold: The genesis of this idea was when I was at Microsoft. We had
| a problem with patent liability. All these people were coming to sue us or
| demand payment. And Bill (Gates) asked me to think about if there was a
| solution. This is what I came up with.
|
| WSJ: So you think that you're actually protecting companies from more
| settlements or bigger payments down the road?
`----
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122142717791833671.html
We doctor your patents, so be patent!
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| Unlike most other pure licensing companies, Intellectual Ventures hasn’t
| filed patent-infringement lawsuits to help force settlements. But the group
| lobbying on behalf of tech companies in Washington, the Coalition for Patent
| Fairness — which includes several companies that have been approached for
| licensing deals by Intellectual Ventures — says it is only a matter of
| time. “Since these thousands of patents only give [Intellectual Ventures] the
| right to stop others from making products, through lawsuits, it is obvious
| what they intend to do,” the group said in a statement.
|
| [...]
|
| As with short sellers, large companies don't like plays that can shake them
| up and expose their inadequacies, and will spend large amounts to PR /
| lobby / legislate them away - and as any small player who has tried to
| enforce patent abuse by large companies knows, it's virtually impossible to
| win and ruinously expensive to fight. So in that respect, aggregation is a
| good thing. Its hard to tell from this article if its just part of the PR war
| or whether there has been a real step up in the shakedown.
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http://broadstuff.com/archives/1246-We-doctor-your-patents,-so-be-patent!.html
Reforming the Patent System
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| Intellectual Ventures and its ilk are arguably the single biggest risk to
| America's continued leadership in technology and innovation. As dsquared
| elegantly put it in a comment here in May, the company might do a bit of R,
| but it doesn't do any D. Instead, it acts as a brake on any company wanting
| to do substantive R&D of its own, since there's a good chance Intellectual
| Ventures will have got there first, patented the idea, and then just decided
| to sit on it until somebody dares to violate it.
`----
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/09/17/reforming-the-patent-system?tid=true
Ideas Are Everywhere... So Why Do We Limit Them?
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| Gladwell uses this to talk up what Myhrvold is doing, suggesting that
| Intellectual Ventures is really about continuing that process, getting those
| ideas out there -- but he misses the much bigger point: if these ideas are
| the natural progression, almost guaranteed to be discovered by someone sooner
| or later, why do we give a monopoly on these ideas to a single discoverer?
| Myhrvold's whole business model is about monopolizing all of these ideas and
| charging others (who may have discovered them totally independently) to
| actually do something with them. Yet, if Gladwell's premise is correct (and
| there's plenty of evidence included in the article), then Myhrvold's efforts
| shouldn't be seen as a big deal. After all, if it wasn't Myhrvold and his
| friends doing it, others would very likely come up with the same thing sooner
| or later.
|
| This is especially highlighted in one anecdote in the article, of Myhrvold
| holding a dinner with a bunch of smart people... and an attorney. The group
| spent dinner talking about a bunch of different random ideas, with no real
| goal or purpose -- just "chewing the rag" as one participant put it. But the
| next day the attorney approached them with a typewritten description of 36
| different inventions that were potentially patentable out of the dinner. When
| a random "chewing the rag" conversation turns up 36 monopolies, something is
| wrong. Those aren't inventions that deserve a monopoly.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080507/0114581051.shtml
Related:
Who is the world's biggest patent troll?
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| In two consecutive days, The Wall Street Journal presented two different
| answers. The first is not surprising: Intellectual Ventures, the brainchild
| of ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. It's now out "to raise as much as
| $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from
| universities in Asia."
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http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9816163-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
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