

Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures hides lawsuits via 1000+ shell companies - mbrubeck
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml

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sireat
I remember reading a glowing profile a few years ago on Nathan Myhrvold and
Intellectual Ventures(I believe it was on Wired), how they got together a
bunch of big scientists and came up with cool new ideas (and then patented
them, but that seemed fair to me at the time).

Seems that was just good PR back then, or possibly Mr. Myhrvold started out
the business on the best of the intentions... till the cold hard reality of
being able to make money by just sitting back, exploiting the broken patent
system and extorting raised its appeal.

Has IV actually been responsible for something good? I do not ask this
sarcastically(almost), what good deeds have they done?

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qohen
The "glowing profile" you mention may have been this 2008 article in the New
Yorker, by Malcolm Gladwell:
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell)

~~~
madair
My appreciation for Malcolm Gladwell's work took a major tumble at the
publication of that article. We had enough sycophantic executive worship from
Wired in the 90s to keep me immune to that sort of carefully packaged PR for a
lifetime.

~~~
rortian
I don't think you read the article. The conclusion is that ideas are cheap.
The dude was the ideas man.

When a company is seen as a bullshitting enterprise how is it sycophantic?

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madair
Yes, I read the article a few times since it was released.

A knowledgeable reader like you or I realizes the travesty of an organization
of rich people sitting around dreaming up ideas so they can assign a team to
document for patent. But you have to _interpret_ the article to see that
angle, because the extent of Malcolm Gladwell's interpretations are the
problems of eponymous attribution and the message that "you can do it too",
which comes off disingenuously:

 _"The unavoidable first response to Myhrvold and his crew is to think of them
as a kind of dream team, but, of course, the fact that they invent as
prodigiously and effortlessly as they do is evidence that they are not a dream
team at all. You could put together an Intellectual Ventures in Los Angeles,
if you wanted to, and Chicago, and New York and Baltimore, and anywhere you
could find enough imagination, a fresh set of eyes, and a room full of Varleys
and Pfaffs."_

Yes, he's right, we can setup a patent mill too! (I know, that's not fair, he
means that we could setup an invention workshop too, but that's not what we
typically see I.V. as.)

On the other hand, there's Dean Kamen. Now _that's_ an invention workshop!
Bravo!

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DaniFong
This highlights one of the problems with the current patent system that I
illustrate in my recent essay: How Law Shapes the Business Landscape, and a
Patent Puzzle.

[http://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the-
busine...](http://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the-business-
landscape-and-a-patent-puzzle/)

Corporations with no assets and no technological liabilities can acquire
patents and use them as weapons for extortion. There is no counterbalancing
force. These corporations may be created and dissolved at will for an
exploitative purpose: they need not ever invent, produce, or otherwise give
back to the public: the initial impetus for the patent system in the first
place.

The liquidity afforded to ideas that Intellectual Ventures claims to create
might, in fact, create enough social good that the drain via litigation is
mollified. Given that they've claimed to be pacifists here, the deception laid
bare looks particularly evil.

~~~
dskhatri
"There is no counterbalancing force. "

There is a company offering an interesting service to fight patent trolls:
[http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc201...](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc2010021_382392.htm?chan=technology_special+report+--+ceo+guide+to+patent+trolls_special+report%3A+ceo+guide+to+patent+trolls)

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rubyrescue
Good side project - shellcompanyfinder.com - up/downvote companies as
potential shells, share information as to their true owner.

~~~
fnid2
I could build this in a weekend. No, really.

Who is in? I'm in. Someone comes with me I'll go, but I have no interest in a
lone wolf initiative.

I need a designer who knows HTML/CSS and someone who can help get the word
out. I'll do all the programming, database design, security, and hosting.

Optimally, I'd like at least 3 people to be involved including myself. If two
people, who are _serious_ , decide to come along by midnight tonight, we'll
post a link to review the site Monday morning.

Edit: The project has been started, see this post to contribute to a
discussion about what the site will do. I have a data model there as well:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135508>

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DTrejo
buy the domain name fast! :)

~~~
fnid2
Okay, I now own shellcompanyfinder.com

~~~
rubyrescue
ohh this is fun, i just bought it too (intending to donate it to the effort)
and godaddy said the purchase was successful... wonder what will happen now...

update:

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

SHELLCOMPANYFINDER.COM

Error: SHELLCOMPANYFINDER.COM: cannot register - already registered

~~~
fnid2
Interesting! I have always wondered what happened in cases like this. The
godaddy checkout process is so long and tedious, by the time you actually pay,
someone else could have gone through the process somewhere else. In this case,
I used godaddy too.

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noonespecial
Their business practices were always dubious. The fact that they feel the need
to hide them in this fashion says all there is to be said.

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akadien
IANAL, so can somebody explain how this isn't considered racketeering (you pay
IV for their promise not to sue you)?

~~~
aristus
Racketeering is the extortion of money under the threat of illegal violence:
arson, injury, blackmail, etc. The payer has done nothing to harm the payee.

Patent trolling is the extortion of money under the threat of a legal action
over a wrong done by the payer (ie, infringed on a patent).

If you hit me with your car, I can choose to sue your insurance company
(you've paid them to take legal responsibility), or I can choose to accept a
negotiated settlement from them.

~~~
FlorinAndrei
Right, so then the definition of racketeering is starting to become
inadequate, is the way I see it.

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cabalamat
Another reason we need the Pirate Party.

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frederickcook
I'm sure I'll get a backlash here for supporting this guy, but the system he
publicly advocates would be a much better functioning patent system than the
current one.

Currently, the average lawsuit between a large and small company over an IP
dispute is around $1.6M. The result is that only large companies can play the
patent game, and will simply infringe on smaller companies.

If IV can level the playing field by aggregating these patents and taking on
that lawsuit risk, that should theoretically reduce the likelihood (or at
least the cost) of an IP lawsuit, making the system more efficient.

~~~
jackfoxy
That's also the starting cost of a lawsuit between a big company and another
big company. We are currently not moving forward with some development our
customers are requesting because of a ludicrous patent held by a subsidary of
a large company.

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dhyasama
I'm a cookbook junkie and was looking forward to IV's 1500 page codification
of molecular gastronomy. Then I saw this article and put two and two together.
IV won't make enough money selling a cookbook to justify the expense of their
kitchen and staff. I'll bet money it's all an exercise to patent cooking
techniques. Cloaking it as a cookbook has allowed them to bring in some big
names to help out. That's dirty pool.

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ironkeith
In the book "Superfreakenomics", IV is shown to be actively developing
insanely simple/improbable solutions for hurricanes (by cycling warmer ocean
water with cooler water using tires and concrete), global warming (by pumping
sulphur into the statosphere), and malaria (with female mosquito detecting
lasers). The book protrayed them as developing prototypes for those
"inventions", so patents seem fitting.

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jasonlbaptiste
throw this guy in jail for the rest of his life and be done with it. no
different than madoff. worse actually. he not only took money, but he also
"took" knowledge + intellectual property.

~~~
dskhatri
That's pretty harsh and unobjective! I haven't read anything to suggest patent
trolling is equivalent to a Ponzi-scheme. Furthermore, give the man benefit of
the doubt. For a person who did a Post Doc with Stephen Hawking, it's
difficult to believe he is absolutely lacking in ethics and morals.

~~~
mbrubeck
According to the article, I.V. demands cash _"for a combined promise not to
sue over those patents and (here's the sneaky bit) a bit of a pyramid scheme,
where those in early supposedly get a cut of later deals."_

I'm not sure that being smart and accomplished in science is a reliable
predictor of ethics or morals.

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jasonlbaptiste
yup, that's what i based it off of (being objective). It's also _similar
enough_ that he takes money from the big companies THEN goes back to sue them.
I don't think it's being harsh either. I'm absolutely against throwing people
in jail for dumb things that don't deserve the time. If we don't do something
about patent trolls like this, things will continue to get even worse.

Being smart (studying under hawking) != having good morals.

~~~
gridspy
He sounds more like someone with a "If I can do it under the law, it must be
perfectly moral to do it" sort of personality.

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pixcavator
No more than a speculation. Try to follow the links...

