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Note the patents IV discusses in their dealings with the press: e.g. one for zapping malaria-carrying mosquitoes out of the sky with lasers. Surely, the entrepreneurs are lining up to bring that invention to the wealthy markets of the Dark Continent and the rest of the Third World. Right after they introduce Bill Gates' high tech toilet. In all seriousness, the sad truth is some projects will not be driven to completion by market forces. They require "brute force" (personal wealth and force of will) to make them happen. Gates' push for a malaria vaccine was one. Glaxo, as a "rational actor", would not have finished that project if not for all the free Gates Foundation funding. Truly an amazing achievement. However, his former CTO appears to be cut from a different cloth. His brute forced idea is IV. Not, e.g., a device to kill malaria carrying parasites with lasers, or any other such noble invention (they have plenty of examples to feed the press I'm sure), but a company to _license_ that invention, for a _price_... _if_ it can find a _suitable_ licensee. Big difference. Back in the real world...

Finding suitable entrepreneurs to take great ideas covered by someone else's patents forward is not how IV makes money. (Nor is it usually how great ideas reach the market. Theoretically of course it sounds great.) Rather, IV threatens successful businesses with lawsuits based on allegations of infringement of patents IV controls - low quality patents that would likely be partially or wholly invalidated were they to be re-examined or challenged in court. The targets of IV's threats are faced with the option of either challenging the patents (made more difficult through aggregation and extensive use of shell companies) or paying fees. The latter is less expensive, so they pay the fees.