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Patent Firm Woos Inventors

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stable-of-thoughts dept.

An anonymous reader writes "C|Net has an article up discussing a new way to win the patent race; hook up with the inventors." From the article: "'They are more concept type of patents. It is a very blue sky kind of thing,' Langer said of the patents that Intellectual Ventures is trying to develop. By contrast, the type of patents that Langer continues to file on his own are typically based on several years of lab research and targeted at very specific ideas, he said. Other researchers working with the firm include Eric Leuthardt, a neurosurgeon with St. Louis' Washington University, and Muriel Ishikawa, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "

2 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. So basically... by nonlnear · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Intellectual Ventures is a kinder gentler patent troll? Yes, I did RTFA. It's just a puff piece that drops the words "new" and "controversial" to snag the uninformed reader. From the second paragraph:

    In the past year or so, Intellectual Ventures has emerged as one of the more controversial companies in the tech industry. The company is filing patents, but also buying patents from defunct companies, independent inventors and others.

    One telling excerpt reveals the truth:

    The company is filing about 300 patent applications a year, but so far has only been granted one patent. Typically, the company will not seek royalties until the patent is granted. Lawsuits have also not been filed. Some deals may be announced in a few months.

    So they haven't started shooting the lawsuit shotgun because they don't have enough ammo yet. And yes, I did read the part about how they work with some big names actively developing their ideas. But these are people who would be inventing anyways. This company is just a convenient way of outsourcing the legalese.

    --
    argumentum ad fallacium: Fallacy of defining a fallacy which allows one to dismiss the argument in question.
  2. Intellectual Ventures *IS* a Patent Troll by cheesedog · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Myhrvold continues to maintain that his massive patent holding firm is all about hiring inventors and doing brand new stuff. Yet their own history is not on their side. With 3000 patents in their portfolio already, the young age of the firm, and normal patent pendancy of about 3 years, the only way they could have built this portfolio is by purchasing patents from dead companies or other patent trolls and paper inventors. Myhrvold is continually disengenuous about what they do, and the evidence is not in their favor (they almost spent $15 million on the XML patent portfolio before Novell got it and released it to the commons).

    My verdict: Troll to the Xth Degree!