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'Vested interests behind discussion on patents'
,----[ Quote ]
| Prominent sponsors and organizers of the GW
| Law programmes have included multinational
| pharmaceutical companies like Novartis,
| Gilead Sciences, the Pharmaceutical
| Research and Manufacturers of America
| (PhRMA), a club of the big pharma in the
| US, and the US-India Business Council
| (USIBC), and companies with a vested
| interest in software patents such as
| Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft, and
| Qualcomm. Many of these companies have
| patent applications pending in the Indian
| patent office and some like Novartis and
| Bayer are even dragging the Indian
| government to court in an attempt to
| undermine the safeguard provisions in
| Indian patent law.
`----
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Vested-interests-behind-discussion-on-patents/articleshow/5736927.cms
Beware the King of the Trolls
,----[ Quote ]
| If you haven't heard of Intellectual
| Ventures, you will do. Set up by ex-
| Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, with
| investments from Microsoft among others, it
| is basically a patenting machine â filing
| and buying them in huge quantities. Note
| that it doesn't actually *use* these
| patents â except to threaten people with.
| In other words, Intellectual Ventures is a
| patent troll â or, rather the King of the
| Patent Trolls.
|
| [...]
|
| They don't *invent* anything in the proper,
| deep sense of the word: they merely file
| and buy patents â with no intent of ever
| making stuff or solving real-life problems.
| It's purely a cynical exploitation of the
| broken US patent system that grants very
| broad patents on often obvious ideas, which
| are then used to *impede* other companies'
| activities.
|
| [...]
|
| This is the killer: Intellectual Venture's
| business model is fear. âIf IV breathes in
| your direction, take a licenseâ - never
| mind whether their patent claims are valid,
| just roll over, because nobody messes with
| the King of the Patent Trolls.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=2863
The King of the Trolls Strikes Gold
,----[ Quote ]
| What's just so perfect, of course, is that
| not only did Intellectual Ventures not
| invent anything here, but that it used
| other companies to hide the fact it had
| acquired the patent - the very opposite of
| the disclosure that the word "patent"
| implies. It's a perfect demonstration of
| what is wrong with Intellectual Ventures
| and the US patent system, and with their
| unhealthy symbiosis.
|
| It will be interesting to see what happens
| now. I'm sure that lots of conversations
| between Intellectual Ventures and
| smartphone manufacturers are underway;
| deals will be done, and we'll never know
| the details. So now might be a good time
| for companies and engineers to dig through
| that prior art at the bottom of their
| filing cabinets in the hope that the patent
| can be blown away rather than bowed down
| to.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2876
New Motion Control Patent Could Shake Up Smartphone Industry
,----[ Quote ]
| Is Durham Logistics a legitimate company?
| Is it an IP holding company for another
| entity? A patent troll? Who knows? But,
| itâs sitting on this patent.
|
| Now, Iâm no expert on intellectual
| property, but itâs worrisome to me that a
| patent as broad as this exists at all, let
| alone that itâs in the hands of some
| mysterious Vegas LLC we know nothing about.
| After all, patent #7,679,604 seems to apply
| not just to any smartphone with an
| accelerometer, but to any device that uses
| any method of measuring motion as a means
| of control. As one patent attorney told me,
| âItâs obscenely broad.â And itâs old enough
| to predate many of the motion-sensing
| smartphones currently on the market.
`----
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100324/motion-control-a-powder-keg-in-the-mobile-patent-war/
Smart Phone Motion Control Patented; Held By Shell Company
,----[ Quote ]
| Hmm. The plot thickens. There's some
| evidence that this may be one of
| Intellectual Ventures 1000+ shell
| companies. The shell company discussed
| here, Durham Logistics, is apparently owned
| by Memscom LLC, according to the Nevada
| corporations listings. Memscom's address is
| the identical address (suite and all) to an
| Intellectual Ventures office. Could be a
| coincidence... but... certainly there's
| some evidence that this patent is held or
| controlled by Intellectual Ventures. Why is
| IV controlling a patent created by Google
| and Apple inventors?
|
| Update 2: Thanks to some sleuthing in our
| comments and various others via email, it
| looks like the engineers in question both
| worked at Arraycomm back in the day when
| this patent was filed, but Arraycomm dumped
| some of its patent portfolio along the way,
| and somehow or another, this patent appears
| to have ended up with this company --
| almost certainly a part of Intellectual
| Ventures. Notice how far this patent is
| from any actual innovation. This is not how
| the system is supposed to work.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100324/1803298704.shtml
Mammoth patent troll holder snags smartphone threat
,----[ Quote ]
| Paczkowski has now discovered that the
| current owner of the patent is Intellectual
| Ventures (IV), a self-styled "invention
| company" which The Reg wrote about just
| this Wednesday in conjunction with its
| TerraPower division's work on small-scale
| nuclear reactors.
|
| Those reactors may be small-scale, but IV
| certainly isn't. According to a 1,989-page
| report published by the "Strategic IP
| Counseling" group Avancept LLC in January
| of this year, IV has a patent portfolio
| that could include as many as 25,000 to
| 50,000 patents squirreled away in around
| 1,100 shell companies.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/26/intellectual_ventures_bags_smartphone_patent/
Bureaucracy
,----[ Quote ]
| People are gradually beginning to ask
| questions about the role of Intellectual
| Ventures and their immense holding of
| software patents. Kodak is not a company I
| like (they trolled Sun for a fortune) but
| this accusation is very serious. Getting to
| the bottom of it would take some serious
| and well-funded investigation. Or, plan B,
| we can ask our legislators to remove the
| mechanisms used for trollingâ
`----
http://webmink.com/2010/03/19/links-for-2010-03-19/
Free Software's Secret Patent Weapon
,----[ Quote ]
| Yesterday I was warning about the threat
| that the super-troll Intellectual Ventures
| represents. To provide some balance, here's
| a surprisingly upbeat piece from Samba
| creator Andrew Tridgell on how to read
| software patents. It's incredibly well
| done, and I recommend it to everyone.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=2866
Recent:
Kodak Says Intellectual Ventures Behind Patent Lawsuit Filed By Shell Company
,----[ Quote ]
| It seems that at least one company sued over
| such a patent is hitting back. Joe Mullin
| points us to the Legal Pad blog, which notes
| that Kodak, who has been sued for patent
| infringement by a shell company (PFI) being
| represented by Ray Niro (famous for, among
| other things, being the first person labeled
| a "patent troll," as well as suing a bunch of
| companies he didn't like with a bogus patent
| -- finally rejected for good, recently --
| that he claimed covered any website that used
| a JPEG image), doesn't believe that it's
| really the shell company that's behind this
| lawsuit. It's demanding that Intellectual
| Ventures take part...
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100310/0302518496.shtml
Will Patent Holder IV Show Its Face to Kodak?
,----[ Quote ]
| Kodak is trying to draw large patent hoarder
| Intellectual Ventures into court.
|
| With its 30,000 patents and opaque veil of
| mystery, IV has shied away from the courts,
| likely because an allergy to discovery. But
| with its new money making scheme of selling
| patents to trolls who then file lawsuits
| (free reg. req.), you knew that IV would
| eventually end up in a courtroom.
|
| Here are the basics on the Kodak case:
|
| 1. IV sold patent to shell company named
| Picture Frame Innovations.
|
| 2. Picture Frame, represented by Ray âthe
| original patent trollâ Niro, sued Kodak for
| patent infringement.
|
| 3. IV co-founder Peter Detkin told me last
| year that IV is now cutting deals where it
| sells patents and takes a cut of any money
| made by filing lawsuits (free reg. req.). So
| it seemed like IV might have struck such a
| deal with Picture Frame and Niro.
`----
http://legalpad.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/03/will-patent-holder-iv-show-its-face-to-kodak.html
Facebook Huddles with Patent Vampire
,----[ Quote ]
| After leaving Microsoft, Myhrvold went into the patent business. His
| Intellectual Ventures works like this: Buy up patents, then use them to
| bludgeon large tech companies into forking over fees or making investments in
| Intellectual Ventures.
|
| In the course of his short career, Zuckerberg, as a tipster reminded us, has
| accumulated a nice array of patents. They're related, as you might guess, to
| social networking and digital media. Could he use them against his rivals via
| Myhrvold, raising some money for Facebook in the process?
`----
http://gawker.com/5313640/facebook-huddles-with-patent-vampire
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