Re:IV: Don't Mind Our 2000 Shell Companies, That's Totally N...
by modeless on Friday December 21, 2012 @10:16PM
(#4955648)
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.
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.