In a past life, in the course of work I occasionally happened to hang out with experienced licensing executives. They were discussing Intellectual Ventures at o

In a past life, in the course of work I occasionally happened to hang out with experienced licensing executives. They were discussing Intellectual Ventures at one point (and this is 2007 or so), and apparently in those days IV claimed they would monetize patents without litigation. These executives sorta laughed at this, seeing it as a rather naïve hope. Their reasoning was pretty straightforward: there are always companies whose default response to licensing negotiations is "fuck off", and patents being essentially just a right to sue, litigation was inevitable. IV did go 10 years before beginning suing, but as was predicted, it did eventually happen.