Nathan Myhrvold is a pompous scumbag who made millions ad an exec at Microsoft and recently founded a so-called innovation company called Intellectual Ventures. The business model of this company is to aggressively patent anything they can think of and also buy up enormous numbers of patents from individuals and universities and then "license" them to corporations for a fee. It is really an extortion racket. He has been in the news recently when the New Yorker did a puff piece on his operation: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell/?currentPage=all
(A curious puff piece too because the article gives numerous examples of how many important inventions in history were developed independently and simultaneously by multiple people - which would argue against the utility of a company that accumulates patents!) There is a hilarious moment in Myhrvold's recent interview with PC World, where when challenged about the ethics of demanding money without creating anything, he justifies himself by saying he is just being a capitalist. How true, how very true! http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145704/myhrvold_talks_innovation_past_and_present.html --------------------------------------------------snip IDGNS: Do you think that it is OK for a company to simply own a bunch of patents and not make anything? Myhrvold: I would say, yes, there's nothing wrong with that. And the analogy I would use is, it'd be like saying, "Is it OK for someone to buy a chunk of the business and never show up there?" And the answer is, yes. We call them venture capitalists or shareholders. To have a system of taking risk and building valuable companies, you have to have people that are financiers or have other specialized roles. -raghu. -- "CURIOSITY? Nah. I got THAT cat with a lawnmower."
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