Theoretically, entrepreneurs would look through lists of patents for something to produce, and than license and produce it.

The patent absurdity of that idea, shows how badly broken the system is. Still, IV prefers to pretend that the system is indeed working like that.

Note the patents IV discusses in their dealings with the press: e.g. one for zapping malaria-carrying mosquitoes out of the sky with lasers. Surely, the entrepreneurs are lining up to bring that invention to the wealthy markets of the Dark Continent and the rest of the Third World. Right after they introduce Bill Gates' high tech toilet. In all seriousness, the sad truth is some projects will not be driven to completion by market forces. They require "brute force" (personal wealth and force of will) to make them happen. Gates' push for a malaria vaccine was one. Glaxo, as a "rational actor", would not have finished that project if not for all the free Gates Foundation funding. Truly an amazing achievement. However, his former CTO appears to be cut from a different cloth. His brute forced idea is IV. Not, e.g., a device to kill malaria carrying parasites with lasers, or any other such noble invention (they have plenty of examples to feed the press I'm sure), but a company to _license_ that invention, for a _price_... _if_ it can find a _suitable_ licensee. Big difference. Back in the real world...

Finding suitable entrepreneurs to take great ideas covered by someone else's patents forward is not how IV makes money. (Nor is it usually how great ideas reach the market. Theoretically of course it sounds great.) Rather, IV threatens successful businesses with lawsuits based on allegations of infringement of patents IV controls - low quality patents that would likely be partially or wholly invalidated were they to be re-examined or challenged in court. The targets of IV's threats are faced with the option of either challenging the patents (made more difficult through aggregation and extensive use of shell companies) or paying fees. The latter is less expensive, so they pay the fees.

Brilliant comment. This public statement by IV hopefully can be used in court to undermine their entire position, that they and their lawyers are abusing the legal system for financial gain.

Not only will they lose the case, but 'abuse of the legal system' is grounds for disbarment in most states.

The patents were all disclosed the moment they issued, so I'm not following your argument.

The "disclosure" represented by a patent issued to a random shell corporation is minimal considering the opaque (and yet still ambiguous) legal jargon they are written in and the sheer volume of junk patents issued. This is, of course, part of the tragedy of today's lamentable patent system.

If Intellectual Ventures was actually interested in performing a service for the industry they would publish all sorts of information about all their patents in their portfolio (starting with which patents they control), so that potential licensees could actually collect and license valuable ideas. But of course it's much more profitable to make patents as confusing, opaque, vague, and secret as possible, then wait for someone to unknowingly infringe and sue them a couple of years after it's too late to stop infringing.

I think the point is that, when something novel is invented, two routes can be taken:

Patent: Protection from competition for a limited time, in exchange for disclosing the methods of the invention.

Trade secret: Keep things on lock, and make money on it until someone else figures it out for themselves.

This is why things like "pinch zoom" and about 5m other shitty patents are so absurd: There's very little "novel" about most software patents. And these people are making really broad claims, and doing nothing with them, for the sake of litigation. It's a mockery of the intention of the office.