manhonest

Nick, check your facts. That is the picture now. But how did IV get started? An ex-Microsoftie used _his own money_ to acquire a critical mass of patents before anyone would pay attention to IV. None of those companies pledged funds for him to build a portfolio of mostly junk patents from scratch. He had to use his own money.

There is a pre-history of IV, before they had a website with press releases that can be cut and pasted into comments. None of those companies were signed on from day one, when IV's portfolio did not yet exist and was just an idea.

Is that what you are suggesting?

Other attempts at this task:

1. Google search: feldman-giants-among-us.pdf [+]

2. http://www.indiegogo.com/iv-thicket

+ Read this paper if you want to get a general idea of how IV operates.

My guess: Getting repeatedly cautioned and perhaps threatened by patent lawyers while CTO at Microsoft. To use the cliche, he could not beat them so he joined them. IV is essentially a patent law firm that is its own client, or a company legal department minus the company; it was initially funded out of his own pocket. In my experience very few business people like lawyers or litigation and no sensible business person would have been inclined to invest millions in an idea like IV. But a man with Microsoft money and a grudge to settle with the world of patents and patent lawyers... anything is possible when you have that much cash. Some guys build failed music museums shaped like melting guitars[1], others start acquiring low quality patents en masse, forming short-lived shell companies with cryptic names and threatening innovators with patent litigation.

Now that they are bringing in revenue a business person might see things differently; maybe IV looks like a sensible investment. But trolling is still trolling. As with a law firm, they rely on the patent system to make money yet they produce nothing. They rely on fear of litigation to drive their "business". How long can they keep up the charade?

1. Interestingly, he's no stranger to frivolous patent litigation either. However like his museum, his attempts at bogus-patent-based extortion failed.

I don't care what anyone says, Aaron Greenspan you have once again impressed me... can't say the same for Zuckerberg. Well done.

As for IV, I came across an amusing quote from their co-founder at a recent conference: he claimed, among other things, that 1. concerns about IV's consistent use of _cryptically-named_ shells[1] is a "red herring" and 2. for $80K any company could do a freedom-to-operate analysis on every claim in IV's entire portfolio.

1. You need not browse past page one of Aaron's list to get a taste of how descriptive the shell company names are. Take, for example, Aht Chu LLC. As the co-founder noted at the conference, thousands of shell companies with cryptic names are necessary because they make it easier for IV to segregate its IP assets. I suspect there might have some other advantages too. ;)