Intellectual Ventures on the patent-suit path again
Critics accuse Intellectual Ventures of being a patent troll; the outfit has between 30,000 and 50,000 patents squirreled away in around 1,100 shell companies, and it has just filed sued for patent infringement against nine high tech companies
An Intellectual Property-gathering outfit founded by ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold has sued nine tech companies for patent infringement.
Intellectual Ventures filed a lawsuit against three semiconductor vendors — Altera Corp., Microsemi Corp., and Lattice Semiconductor Corp. — in the U.S. District Court of Delaware.
Separately it brought a suit against DRAM and Flash makers Elpida Memory Inc., which is based in Tokyo, Japan, and South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor Inc.
Myhrvold’s firm also sued a number of high-profile anti-virus software companies in yet another suit that fingered Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Trend Micro Inc., Symantec Corp., and McAfee Inc.
“Over the years, Intellectual Ventures has successfully negotiated license agreements with some of the top technology companies in the world. However, some companies have chosen to ignore our requests for good faith negotiations and discussions,” said the outfit’s top litigation counsel Melissa Finocchio.
“Protecting our invention rights through these actions is the right choice for our investors, inventors and current licensees,” she said.
Kelly Fiveash writes that it is understood that Intellectual Ventures has a patent portfolio that could include as many as 30,000 to 50,000 patents squirreled away in around 1,100 shell companies. Critics accuse Myhrvold’s company of being a patent troll.
See details of the lawsuits here.
