If anybody still has any illusions about the current state of dysfunction of the patent system in the US, please make sure they listen to or read This American Life’s investigation of Intellectual Ventures (IV). IV was founded and is headed up by Nathan Myhrvold who made a fortune as the CTO of Microsoft (as an aside: I don’t really know what Myhrvold did in that role - if someone knows would be great to update the Wikipedia page). IV has taken the patent troll approach to a whole new level of cynicism:
Myhrvold is supposed to be a polymath which gives the company the appearance of being led by a mad genius inventor (a modern-day Edison?) yet it doesn’t appear that Myhrvold has invented anything of consequence (contrast this with the amazing Dean Kamen).
IV has a lab and employs some inventors making it seem like they are engaged in legitimate activity. While they have generated about 1,000 patents they have yet to produce a single thing that people could actually use. And more importantly, this pales relative to the 30,000 or so patents they have acquired.
In order to further try to keep up its image as a “good” actor, IV generally doesn’t sue. Instead it sells its patents to other firms which then handle the law suits. But IV retains an interest in the settlement proceeds.
The whole sham is backed by many of America’s largest tech companies, which themselves are actively engaged in patenting anything that comes to mind. The sums expended on filing these patents, buying them and then suing over them could fund amazing amounts of research instead. We urgently need meaningful patent reform so that we can get back to actually making stuff instead of enriching lawyers.
