Investment Companies Backing Patent Trolls

greenbird sends us to Forbes for an account of billions in investments flowing to US patent troll companies. One example is DeepNines, who is suing McAfee over a patent that covers combining an IDS and firewall in a single device. The patent was filed on May 17, 2000 and issued on June 6, 2006. No prior art for that, no siree. DeepNines is funded by "an $8 million zero-coupon note to Altitude Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm, promising in return a cut of any winnings stemming from the lawsuit. The payout is based on a formula that grants Altitude a percentage that decreases with a bigger award."

Comments

It's good and right that they suffer.

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"M$" is getting nailed by the very system you claim they enjoy.

They not only enjoy patent nonsense, they helped make it so awefull to begin with. M$, though freely violating other people's work, has been a major backer of laws like the DMCA. Vista and the genuine disadvantage of XP should be enough to show you where they want things to go. Why you want to be dragged along and defend them at every step is beyond me. Like so many non free software schemes, software patents are so toxic and anti-social that they also harm those who sought to use them in the first place.

I'd really appreciate it if you showed us a single instance of Microsoft (oh, "M$") using a patent offensively.

I'd say the above linked rants of Mr. Balmer are terribly offensive. The SCO lawsuits are an example of M$ abusing copyrights by proxy. In the patent case, I can agree with some of the things a younger M$ said about patents and losers. They may not have meant those things when they said them, but they were fine words all the same. Those that can't innovate, litigate before they go out of business.