Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Intellectual Ventures' Patent Protection Racket

Posted by kdawson on from the know-people-who-know-people dept.

David Gerard writes "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigious patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'"

3 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. All talk... by religious+freak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When is something going to actually be done about this??? It's been a topic of discussion for years, it impacts major companies in a net negative way and still nothing gets done. I don't understand it...

    --
    If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
  2. Re:Shorter lifetime? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Many (like myself) will point out that the difference between the time of invention and the expiration of the patent correspond with the time it took for the invention to become popular.

  3. Re:Shorter lifetime? by orkysoft · · Score: 5, Insightful

    give me one GOOD reason why copyright should extend BEYOND the author's death.

    To discourage big media companies from ordering hits ON, rather than FOR their stars.

    --

    I suffer from attention surplus disorder.