Beware the King of the Patent Trolls

superapecommando writes "If you haven't heard of Intellectual Ventures, you may want to check this out. Set up by ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, with investments from Microsoft among others, it is basically a patenting machine – filing and buying them in huge quantities. Note that it doesn't actually use these patents – except to threaten people with. In other words, Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll – or, rather the King of the Patent Trolls. So I was interested to come across this extremely positive blog post on the company. That it is so positive is hardly surprising, since the blog is called 'Tangible IP,' and subtitled 'ipVA's blog on adding value through intellectual property.' Nonetheless, it provides valuable insights into the mindset of fans of intellectual monopolies. Here's what it says about Intellectual Ventures: 'They are an invention house, and have adopted and reinvented leading edge patent strategies to create a portfolio of their own IP which, in its own, would be of high high worth.' They don't invent anything in the proper, deep sense of the word; they merely file and buy patents – with no intent of ever making stuff or solving real-life problems."

Comments

Re:devil's advocate

[FuckingNickName]

If you want to philosophise, tangible property is also made up by people using legislation. You have a government granted monopoly on your tangible property: there's nothing in the laws of physics to say that it's yours.

You are correct that patents/copyrights exist for the benefit of the people, from a US Constitutionalist viewpoint. You the people have decided, via a representative democratic system, that the concept of intellectual property is more appropriate than the concept of temporary monopolies granted for the advancement of science and the useful arts.

Time for less decision by the masses and more philosophy for a sanely governed state, perhaps?

Re:Adding value and other oxymorons

[Flambergius]

Whenever a capitalist talks about "adding value" or "creating wealth", they're really talking about creating scarcity.

I call bullshit.