Microsoft alums

The company's investors include Microsoft, Intel and others, according to sources, and those investors have licenses to all of Intellectual Ventures' intellectual property. Intel is also defending itself against patent claims filed by firms that have only a handful of employees. Similarly, Microsoft has been hit with large patent infringement verdicts. The Redmond, Wash. Buy versus build Intellectual Ventures is, in fact, coming up with its own inventions and patents. The company has filed hundreds of patent applications, according to a spokesperson.

So far, the U. Patent and Trademark office has published 22 of these applications. Publication is the first stage that outsiders can examine to see what the application involves. Soon, Intellectual Ventures expects to get its first patent granted. Its original patent applications are far fewer than those acquired, in part because getting a patent can take 18 months or longer and cost thousands in legal fees. Acquiring patents, by contrast, is somewhat easier.

The dot-com collapse prompted several companies to sell their intellectual property. Companies also often abandon patents, discovering that their hard-won invention has little apparent market value.

But more than half of all patents granted are abandoned by the 11th year by owners unwilling to pay renewal fees, according to statistics from the U. Patent and Trademark Office. Like other firms, Intellectual Ventures itself doesn't technically buy the patents. It sets up a shell organization for each group of patents it buys, and then controls the shells.

The only officer listed for those two Delaware limited liability shell companies is Zeon Corp. While shell corporations give IP firms a whiff of skullduggery, it's generally not considered insidious. IP firms and established companies do it all the time. Legislators in Washington and the European Union are touting reforms to balance the rights of patent holders and potential defendants. Striking that balance, however, is proving difficult, said Klein. Developers are in short supply.

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