Intellectual Ventures started as a sort of patent pool for small inventors, at least purportedly. The idea was, as a small inventor, you could pay IV or, I thin

Intellectual Ventures started as a sort of patent pool for small inventors, at least purportedly. The idea was, as a small inventor, you could pay IV or, I think, contribute patents, or some combination of both, and IV would protect you from patent litigation. They only recently started suing people through shell companies. I'm pretty sure most of those companies invested in IV before it started trolling, but I'm having trouble looking up the info. I'll edit later if I find anything.