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Google-Backed Yieldify Has Acquired IP From 'World's Biggest Patent Troll' (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader cites an article on The Register: Yieldify, the Google-backed startup accused of stealing code from British adtech company Bounce Exchange, has been making some unusual friends. Yieldify has acquired an ancient web patent from III Holdings which was first filed in 2007. III Holdings is better known as Inside Intellectual Ventures, co-founded by Nathan Myhrvold. It has been dubbed "the most hated company in tech" and "the world's biggest patent troll." IIV is a "NPE" (non-practicising entity), which gathers up patents and seeks to unlock their value through selling on or licensing the IP. This has been backed up by litigation, such as Samsung, a recipient of one of III's sueballs. In a court filing made last week, Yieldify made a request for declaratory judgement in its ongoing case versus Bounce Exchange, citing the IIV patent. Also from the report: Clearly, patent trolls are unacceptable when they're trolling you, but become strategically useful when you can troll back.
Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them? The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues.
The problem is that independent inventors, who patent their inventions, and then enforce those patents, are contributing NOTHING to society. They are just parasites preying on companies that came up with the same idea independently. At my company, we are forbidden to even look at patents, or to talk to someone who claims to have a patent, because that just increases our liability. They can later come back and say we "stole" their idea. They are just blood-sucking parasites and the world would be better off without them.
The belief that "independent inventors" are creating useful innovations, and then licensing them to grateful companies, is nonsense. That almost never happens.
If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.
If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.
In addition, they should be required to produce a commercial product within a year of filing that implements the patent or lose the rights. That way, companies couldn't come up with new ideas and patent them in hopes of using them isn some unspecified future product. Keep the idea a trade secret and don't patent until you are ready to release a product; and if someone else beats you to it too bad.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.