[vogonj]

or, if you look at it from their perspective, they came up with the idea, went to the trouble of formally describing it and filing paperwork so that it could be released to the public, and then another company either independently invented it or just read their description and built one.

say IV had the patent for a burr coffee grinder. even if they never build a non-prototype grinder, they went to the trouble of conceptualizing, prototyping, and writing down their idea for an invention so someone else could build it. that invention has merit, even if Intellectual Ventures doesn't build one.

the question is whether (ignoring particular types of inventions like computer software, which is legitimately tricky to reason about) all of the inventions are legitimately novel inventions which go through an inventive process of discovery (for lack of a better phrase), or whether they are rote improvements on concepts which are already state-of-the-art, or shots in the dark hoping to land some profitable patent litigation later. and nobody but Intellectual Ventures knows what their intention is.

[VladRussian]

>if you look at it from their perspective, they came up with the idea, went to the trouble of formally describing it and filing paperwork so that it could be released to the public

they went for all this trouble only for such a noble cause?

>they went to the trouble of conceptualizing, prototyping, and writing down their idea for an invention so someone else could build it.

you just made my day.

[vogonj]

no, obviously they went to the trouble for the licensing fees. but they did, as a side effect to the licensing fees, agree to make their invention freely-practicable -- as opposed to the default, where it would be protected by trade secret laws in perpetuity -- after their monopoly period ended.

so that's worth something, I guess.