

Nathan Myhrvold- Brilliant inventor or patent troll? - jeffreyg
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15570585

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noonespecial
The test is stupidly simple:

Does he build things or rent-seek on what others have built?

Edit: I'm sure he's not _all_ of one thing or another. Just take an average.

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rmk
I don't see why trading in patents is such a bad thing. Seeing that patents
have a shelf life, why is this _such_ a bad thing?

I am amazed that a secondary market for patents was there... Myrhvold is
showing us that it does... what's wrong with that?

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noonespecial
If patents worked the way they were supposed to, this would be fine. People
who had an interest in building or using a technology would weight the
difference between licensing a patent, or buying it outright and the market
would thrive.

Instead, we have a cabal of robber barons forming with no intention or
building anything whose sole purpose is to rent-seek (or outright extort)
those who are actually making progress in any given field.

Perhaps as a society, we need Nathan Myhrvold. We're civilized enough to know
that we can't have warlords driving rusty toyotas around terrorizing villagers
with ak47's but not quite civilized enough to purge ourselves of the type of
men who desire such lives. So we give them paper weapons and tolerate their
antisocial behavior. At least no one dies while we collectively wait to grow
up.

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jmathai
At first I bought into the "patent troll" label that was being put on him.
After reading more about his company and his career it's apparent to me that
he's just an entrepreneur that sees huge potential in a "patent market".

Whether or not his trolling will help create more incentive for invention or
impede it is yet to be seen. It's easy to simply call him a patent troll but
the economics of inventions and what he's trying to do are fascinating, just
like any uncharted market.

I vote that he's an entrepreneur that can be labeled as a patent troll. His
company is "bad" in the same way that Walmart is bad. They probably provide a
valuable service at a hidden cost.

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andrewljohnson
Yes, and Jason Calcanis is just an entrepreneur who sees huge potential in a
"whatever the hell he's calling Mahalo lately."

Seeing an opportunity and exploiting it makes you money, but it doesn't always
make it right or good for the world.

And I don't think the comparison to Wal-Mart is valid. Wal-Mart succeeded
because they have the best logistics in the world. They may have some
aggressive business tactics in deploying stores, but selling cheap goods to
people who need them is nothing even remotely like patent-trolling (or
Mahaloing).

Wal-Mart has been shown to have very positive effects on communities, such as
making prescription drugs and doctor visits affordable to poor people.

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jmathai
Agreed. I'm not advocating that he's having a net positive effect.

Regarding Walmart: cheap goods is a benefit (like I said) but it comes at a
cost (like I said). I could say the same about Mahalo. It's having a positive
effect on some of their writers or employees (I don't really know much about
Mahalo, but you get my point).

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wmf
It should be easy enough to resolve this: Where are the products? IV has been
running for enough years that there should be some shipping products by now.

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fnid2
A couple of us are working on a project to help bring this kind of behavior to
light
[http://www.shellcompanyfinder.com/ShellCompanies/Nathan%20My...](http://www.shellcompanyfinder.com/ShellCompanies/Nathan%20Myhrvold%27s%20Intellectual%20Ventures/11)

We just started on it, so there isn't a lot of data, but it is already
possible to start making associations between companies.

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lanstein
'Alas, this may take some time—as Mr Gates pointed out at the TED conference,
new reactor designs like TerraPower’s can take 20 years to invent and another
20 to deploy. So Mr Myhrvold may find that the suspicions against him of
patent-trollery have a long half-life.'

nyuk nyuk nyuk...

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farrel
Patent troll.

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pchristensen
Um, both?

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numair
Brilliant patent troll?

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bhiggins
1000+ shell companies to hide patent lawsuits? Brilliant!

