6 ms·

Giant Patent Troll Awakened: Intellectual Ventures Files Its First Lawsuits

89 points by yanw 16y ago

retube 16y ago
IV is reviewed with some reverence in SuperFreakonomics. If I remember correctly Bill Gates is an investor. They're portrayed as a fabulously noble corporation, populated with the bright and best selflessly attempting to solve some of the world's most pressing issues - climate change, hurricanes and so on. Whether true or not I don't know, but it's disheartening to hear they're actually just a huge patent troll. Leaves a sour taste in my mouth re superfreakomics too.
- bryanlarsen 16y ago
  I was reading superfreakonomics in the store, really enjoying it, until I got to the chapter about IV, and walked out in disgust. I'm sure the massive bribes they got form Myhrvold will overcome their lost sales, though.
  - ced 16y ago
    Why would IV bribe them? In fact, why would a patent troll care about PR at all? Does a good reputation help in court? I'm also going to invoke Hanlon's razor, in "defense" of the freakonomics guys.
    - bryanlarsen 16y ago
      IV cares a great deal about its reputation, and have gone to great lengths to avoid the label of "patent troll". This story is remarkable because it's the first time that IV has actually directly filed a lawsuit rather than going through intermediaries to avoid sullying their own name. They've also spent a large amount of money on lobbyists. Compared to that expense, bribing the superfreakonomics would be cheap and effective. I doubt it was a direct bribe, rather an indirect bribe (wining & dining & all expenses paid vacation to "visit" them).
    - chc 16y ago
      You'd think that, but Intellectual Ventures clearly does care if you ever read the stuff that comes out of the company. Google up some of their previous articles and you'll see their execs lauding all the amazing scientists they've employed. If I had to guess, I'd say they're betting that patent trolling will eventually be recognized for the predatory practice that it is and banned — because although their behavior is hard to distinguish from a common troll, they work hard at PR to make themselves look like the wunderkind offspring of IBM and Microsoft's research labs.
    - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
      I think, but this is a wild guess, that they want to keep a good reputation because of the effect it has on (private) inventors: would you rather sell to Bell Labs or Trolls Inc.?
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  Gizmodo loves them too...
kvs 16y ago
Here is a list of patents and industry vendors sued: http://intellectualventures.com/Libraries/Article_Reprints/Fact_Sheet.sflb.ashx http://intellectualventures.com/Libraries/Article_Reprints/F...
- jdp23 16y ago
  I looked at a couple of the security patents, where they're suing Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee, and Checkpoint. These certainly seem to be acquisition rather than IV-developed ideas. So the methodology here (buy up undervalued patents and sue big companies) looks trollish to me.
T_S_ 16y ago
I doubt they were ever asleep. Just executing a ling-term strategy.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- tzs 16y ago
  That's what IBM says: Given the realities that software source code is human readable, and object code can be reverse engineered, it is difficult for software developers to resort to secrecy. Thus, without patent protection, the incentives to innovate in the field of software are significantly reduced. Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code on a patentee's terms - which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development. This was part of their amicus argument asking the Supreme Court to not eliminate software patents.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - Natsu 16y ago
    Which is odd, given that open source software has been looking to protect itself from patents (rather than by means of patents).
  - orangecat 16y ago
    That's a bizarre argument. At best, it supports software copyrights, not patents. Books are human readable and not secret, from which it doesn't remotely follow that it's reasonable for there to be a patent on the plot of a boy going to wizard school. And as noted the open source comment is a huge WTF.
tzs 16y ago
That was kind of a dumb article. There are many business reasons a company with a patent might transfer the patent into a subsidiary company other than trying to keep people from knowing it is yours. For instance if you are generating revenue from a patent by licensing, having the patent in the hands of a subsidiary would make it easier if you someday wanted to sell the patent. You could instead of directly selling the patent just sell the subsidiary. Your licensees then keep sending their royalty checks to the same company, and the contracts don't have to be updated to specify a new name, and so on. If you transfer a patent to a subsidiary just to hide your involvement in a lawsuit, that is unlikely to even work. When people see that FooCorp is suing over patent #NNNNNNN, and FooCorp is a new corporation and the patent was assigned to IV up until shortly before FooCorp acquired it, it does not take a genius to figure out that FooCorp is almost certainly an IV subsidiary. So, an accurate story would be something like: "IV has sued several companies over patents before. They are now suing some more companies. Probably meaningless trivia--this time they didn't make a subsidiary to deal with the suit". I remain unimpressed with Techdirt.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jerf 16y ago
I followed the links down to the putative patent they are attacking the security companies with. It's 5987610: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5987610.PN.&OS=PN/5987610&RS=PN/5987610 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec... From what I can see, the patent is adequately summarized as "Virus scanning, only with a phone line involved".

89 points by yanw 16y ago

IV is reviewed with some reverence in SuperFreakonomics. If I remember correctly Bill Gates is an investor. They're portrayed as a fabulously noble corporation, populated with the bright and best selflessly attempting to solve some of the world's most pressing issues - climate change, hurricanes and so on. Whether true or not I don't know, but it's disheartening to hear they're actually just a huge patent troll. Leaves a sour taste in my mouth re superfreakomics too.

bryanlarsen 16y ago
I was reading superfreakonomics in the store, really enjoying it, until I got to the chapter about IV, and walked out in disgust. I'm sure the massive bribes they got form Myhrvold will overcome their lost sales, though.
- ced 16y ago
  Why would IV bribe them? In fact, why would a patent troll care about PR at all? Does a good reputation help in court? I'm also going to invoke Hanlon's razor, in "defense" of the freakonomics guys.
  - bryanlarsen 16y ago
    IV cares a great deal about its reputation, and have gone to great lengths to avoid the label of "patent troll". This story is remarkable because it's the first time that IV has actually directly filed a lawsuit rather than going through intermediaries to avoid sullying their own name. They've also spent a large amount of money on lobbyists. Compared to that expense, bribing the superfreakonomics would be cheap and effective. I doubt it was a direct bribe, rather an indirect bribe (wining & dining & all expenses paid vacation to "visit" them).
  - chc 16y ago
    You'd think that, but Intellectual Ventures clearly does care if you ever read the stuff that comes out of the company. Google up some of their previous articles and you'll see their execs lauding all the amazing scientists they've employed. If I had to guess, I'd say they're betting that patent trolling will eventually be recognized for the predatory practice that it is and banned — because although their behavior is hard to distinguish from a common troll, they work hard at PR to make themselves look like the wunderkind offspring of IBM and Microsoft's research labs.
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    I think, but this is a wild guess, that they want to keep a good reputation because of the effect it has on (private) inventors: would you rather sell to Bell Labs or Trolls Inc.?
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Gizmodo loves them too...

kvs 16y ago

Here is a list of patents and industry vendors sued: http://intellectualventures.com/Libraries/Article_Reprints/Fact_Sheet.sflb.ashx http://intellectualventures.com/Libraries/Article_Reprints/F...

jdp23 16y ago
I looked at a couple of the security patents, where they're suing Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee, and Checkpoint. These certainly seem to be acquisition rather than IV-developed ideas. So the methodology here (buy up undervalued patents and sue big companies) looks trollish to me.

T_S_ 16y ago

I doubt they were ever asleep. Just executing a ling-term strategy.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

tzs 16y ago
That's what IBM says: Given the realities that software source code is human readable, and object code can be reverse engineered, it is difficult for software developers to resort to secrecy. Thus, without patent protection, the incentives to innovate in the field of software are significantly reduced. Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code on a patentee's terms - which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development. This was part of their amicus argument asking the Supreme Court to not eliminate software patents.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- Natsu 16y ago
  Which is odd, given that open source software has been looking to protect itself from patents (rather than by means of patents).
- orangecat 16y ago
  That's a bizarre argument. At best, it supports software copyrights, not patents. Books are human readable and not secret, from which it doesn't remotely follow that it's reasonable for there to be a patent on the plot of a boy going to wizard school. And as noted the open source comment is a huge WTF.

tzs 16y ago

That was kind of a dumb article. There are many business reasons a company with a patent might transfer the patent into a subsidiary company other than trying to keep people from knowing it is yours. For instance if you are generating revenue from a patent by licensing, having the patent in the hands of a subsidiary would make it easier if you someday wanted to sell the patent. You could instead of directly selling the patent just sell the subsidiary. Your licensees then keep sending their royalty checks to the same company, and the contracts don't have to be updated to specify a new name, and so on. If you transfer a patent to a subsidiary just to hide your involvement in a lawsuit, that is unlikely to even work. When people see that FooCorp is suing over patent #NNNNNNN, and FooCorp is a new corporation and the patent was assigned to IV up until shortly before FooCorp acquired it, it does not take a genius to figure out that FooCorp is almost certainly an IV subsidiary. So, an accurate story would be something like: "IV has sued several companies over patents before. They are now suing some more companies. Probably meaningless trivia--this time they didn't make a subsidiary to deal with the suit". I remain unimpressed with Techdirt.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jerf 16y ago

I followed the links down to the putative patent they are attacking the security companies with. It's 5987610: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5987610.PN.&OS=PN/5987610&RS=PN/5987610 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec... From what I can see, the patent is adequately summarized as "Virus scanning, only with a phone line involved".