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Top Microsoft Execs Moonlighting For a Patent Bully
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 11, 2008 04:31 PM
from the standing-around-a-whiteboard-patenting-stuff dept.
from the standing-around-a-whiteboard-patenting-stuff dept.
theodp writes "TechFlash reports that Microsoft bigwigs like Craig Mundie and Bill Gates (when he still worked there) have been secretly moonlighting at Intellectual Ventures (IV), the 'patent extortion fund' run by Bill's pal Nathan Myhrvold. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that its technologists have been sitting in on IV-sponsored 'innovation sessions,' where their pearls of wisdom were captured and turned into patent applications for Searete, an IV shadow corporate entity. And if all goes well, Searete will soon enjoy exclusive rights to the fruit of the brainstorming, which includes processes ranging from determining and rewarding 'influencers' to treating malaria, HIV, TB, hepatitis, smallpox, and cancer."
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Some Schools Welcoming Patent Firm, Others Wary 55 comments
theodp writes "Intellectual Ventures (IV) will be setting up shop at the top of a Four Seasons this week as Headline Sponsor of the Ready to Commercialize 2008 conference hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. It's the patent firm's 100th university deal, though some, such as Professor Michael Heller at Columbia University, warn against such deals. '... their individual profit comes at the cost of the public ability to innovate. The university's larger mission is to serve the public interest, and some of these deals work against that public interest.' It's a follow-up to the conference IV sponsored last summer for technology transfer professionals entrusted with commercializing their universities' intellectual property, and should help IV, a friend of Microsoft, snag even more exclusive deals (PDF)."
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If I were a Microsoft investor (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were a Microsoft investor I might be a little bit annoyed by high ranking employees contributing valuable IP to another company.
Microsoft is not doing its job as looking after its investors interests if it does not pursue the employees involved for this.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
BRAIN GAMES! Unscramble the prepositions to discover what Microsoft is doing wrong!
Solution: Microsoft is not doing its job of looking after its investors' interests if it does not pursue the employees involved in doing this.
Seriously, though.. Who is investing in Microsoft?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Anybody who owns an S&P 500 index fund or etf, and probably millions of other people who own various mutual funds. Also, there are probably lots of individual stockholders.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean the "same company", just far enough removed to play 3 card monte.
Anyone know if there's a conflict of interest here big enough to merit a SlapWithSpaghettiNoodle (SWSN)?
Re:If I were a Microsoft investor (Score:5, Funny)
SCO, for example. Good for Microsoft that they had nothing to do with that fiasco...
oh, wait [wired.com].
Parent
That threat might have worked... (Score:2)
... if it wasn't for the fact that one of the two employees mentioned happens to be the single majority stockholder of Microsoft.
Re:That threat might have worked... (Score:5, Informative)
A corporation has fiduciary responsibility to all of the shareholders, not just the biggest ones.
-jcr
Parent
Call Jerry (Score:4, Funny)
This will be addressed in the next advertisement, as rumored all over the internet (starting here).
Jerry Seinfeld: "Bill -- what were you thinking?! You can't give away that secret to the OTHER GUY -- YOU GOTTA KEEP THAT FOR MSFT. What will the shareholders say?? They'll say that wasn't very fair of you, that what they'll say!"
Bill Gates: "They promised no one would find out."
Jerry Seinfeld: "This reminds me of when my Mom used to make me eat chicken soup. She'd say that it's an honest thing to eat chicken soup you paid for with your own money -- AND that's true, today, you know."
Bill Gates: "What?"
Jerry Seinfeld: "You gotta eat chicken soup, Bill. I know a guy who ... here is the spot right here, let's go inside and we can eat, but you gotta do it simple, Bill -- just hand over the money and say the name of the soup. But that's all you can do. So, you hold out your money, speak your soup in a loud, clear voice, step to the left and receive...It's very important not embellish on your order. No extraneous comments. No questions. No compliments."
Bill Gates: "Okay."
Soup Nazi: "YES."
Bill Gates: "Uh... what's good today?"
Soup Nazi: "WAT!"
Bill Gates: "What do you recommend for someone who is having a bad day?"
Soup Nazi: "WAT! THIS NO 20 QUESTIONS. NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
If I were a Microsoft investor I might be a little bit annoyed by high ranking employees contributing valuable IP to another company.
I wouldn't be, necessarily. More likely, this is attempt by MS to shmooze around with IV to try to get special consideration. Further down the road, when MS wants to license IP from IV, they might get a better deal since they've been cooperating up-front. So it's a gamble but I wouldn't say a direct violation of the investor's trust, or fiduciary responsibility.
Re:If I were a Microsoft investor (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, any funds raised will be put toward the charitable cause of buying Myhrvold and extra vowel for his last name, so it's not all bad.
Parent
Re: Train Porn! (Score:2)
Train Wrecks are caused by one train trying to enter the other from behind.
Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't surprise me that smart, greed oriented, affluent people will make use of their talent for some extra money, at whatever the cost to the public (who are largely now all have-nots).
But what happens when pressure exceeds tolerance? When the have-nots have had the last straw? We throw down the yoke and fight for what is ours, which is that right to evolve, either technologically or financially without interruption from outside constraints.
This is a sticky situation with patents. Patents are really only relevant if you are intending to profit from your invention, which is why I like Open Source. If something is released to the public freely, and is allowed to grow and expand on its own merit, no patent can stop it. If no money is gained, no patent holder can sue for money gained. No patent holder can sue to prevent Open Source, because their act of downloading the software to examine it constitutes agreement with the license.
Even worse case scenario, if some asshat managed to convince a judge that their patent was valid and that an Open Source project was in violation, there really is no recourse.
Now if you find that after years of extensive work, that some asshat is suing you for patent violation, you can contact the EFF and fight it. They will help.
With all the ideas floating around, it only goes so far that someone would argue they had an original thought. I mean that really is a tough sell to any judge. Good luck with that.
Offtopic note (Score:2, Troll)
Ridiculously off topic, but I am not sure which is scarier, your UID or that Sig. (Where's it from?)
P.S. Mod him up.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In before, "he bought the UID on ebay."
And, I wrote the sig myself. Thanks for the compliment! :)
I could embellish on the meaning of the sig, but I'll allow your subconscious to experience the fear which is why it's there in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
one of the Great Old Ones (Score:2)
Probably not, just a lucky bastard who wasn't in class or at work at the time.
Re:Offtopic note (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: Scary Sigs, made conscious. (Score:2)
George Lakoff: Women, Fire, & Dangerous Things; Case Study 1 on Anger:
(Physical events can be mapped to emotional distressing states.)
Source Metaphor: An explosion is damaging to the container and dangerous to bystanders.
Target Knowledge Metaphor: A loss of control of knowledge is damaging to a person and dangerous to other people.
Re: (Score:2)
Patents are really only relevant if you are intending to profit from your invention, which is why I like Open Source. If something is released to the public freely, and is allowed to grow and expand on its own merit, no patent can stop it. If no money is gained, no patent holder can sue for money gained.
But that's not the only thing having a patent lets them do, there are other things they can sue you for.
No patent holder can sue to prevent Open Source, because their act of downloading the software to examine it constitutes agreement with the license.
BS. Uploading it (ie, engaging in distribution) would require that they agreed with the license. Downloading it and even using it doesn't, since those don't require permission from the copyright holder.
Even worse case scenario, if some asshat managed to convince a judge that their patent was valid and that an Open Source project was in violation, there really is no recourse.
Maybe, that really depends on where the main contributors are. If a court said that Linux (the kernel) violated some patent and was talked into granting an injunction I imagine that having Linus and Red Hat
Microburton? (Score:2)
IV is a microsoft attack dog (Score:3, Informative)
The purpose if Intellectual Ventures is to harass and intimidate Microsoft competitors, but to do so in a way that Microsoft can keep its hands clean.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen have contributed knowledge and expertise to many 'think tanks' for fee and for free. Why the secrecy here?
Microsoft is a ruthless competitor with a long history of dirty tricks. They didn't invent FUD (Check w/ IBM for that), but they are masters of FUD-foo.
Intellectual Ventures needs to have a large enough portfolio to bring p
so this his how Bill is helpling Africa (Score:3, Insightful)
by giving them free meds, and then charging
them via patent royalties ?
Nice way to retire, bill (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta hand it to you, Mr. Gates... Tell everyone you retired from Microsoft so you could free up time to monopolize biotech and a dozen other infrastructure-critical industries in this country... That's pretty clever. Seriously, are you mad because nobody invited you to prom? Is this some kind of Stepford Wives remix? I'm not saying this because I'm trying to be funny or sarcastic (well, mostly not sarcastic)... I really want to know why some people feel a compulsive need to consume or control every resource in the world. These people are like viruses... An ideological cancer, and it's disgusting to watch people who scream "But... MY INNOVATION!!! NOoooooooo!" Whenever someone asks why they're holding all the cards, but once they've got 'em, boy, outsource everything to a bunch of people who still use their hand to wipe their asses with, reduce the research budget to zilch, and then call yourselves innovators. Innovators of what... Slavery? Mass exploitation? Please. Have some originality... Try doing good for a change. If nothing else, it'll confuse the hell out of your detractors.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of humanity isn't this way. Most of America isn't this way.
This kind of cut-throat need to dominate is pathological and abnormal.
Secretly? (Score:2)
Not secret (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not secret (Score:5, Insightful)
The article makes it sound a lot more benign than it actually is. "We'll come up with great ideas, and let people use 'em for a fee!"
The problem is, as Edison is famous for saying, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Having a good idea is the easy part. Making it work in the real world is where all the problems crop up.
Making someone pay for the privilege of solving all the problems that you're too lazy/incompetent to solve? That just sucks.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
No, the real secret is having someone else do all the hard work and then stealing it from them.
Ha ha. They thought they were going to get rich. Instead, they got to involantary contribute to the betterment of the society as a whole.
Re: Not so Searete (Score:2)
Did the article also mention that Bill Gates of Microsoft also has a financial interest in Searete [freshpatents.com]?
The Crime of Reason (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Reason-Closing-Scientific-Mind/dp/0465005071 [amazon.com]
Patents are genocidial (Score:5, Interesting)
I think its important to understand that as society enters into the coming replication age, that the phony property right they call "patent" will become genocidal.
As things like nanotech and 3d printing take off, production will shift away from the factory and back into the home. The market will start to center around production and creation services instead of production goods.
The people and industries on the losing side of this model will almost certainly try to turn to a patent royalty model, and will almost certainly use extremely coercive measures to impose their control. Just look at Monsanto and ADM and their heavy handed patent strategies used against farmers. Just look at the RIAA and how they cling to their royalty control model under the guise of "intellectual" property and attacked everyone. Just look at the slave plantations, how the plantation masters envisioned that the future of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton-gin and their "ownership" of slaves to vastly expand the size and production capabilities of their plantations. Just look at how pharmaceutical companies sued African nations in the world court to ban them from buying generic AIDS drugs from India. Just look at how patents in the USA slowed anti-lock brakes and air-bags development by decades as millions died.
Mark my words, if we let them push the lie that patent is a "property" or an "incentive" or "protection", genocidal consequences will not be far away.
Re: (Score:2)
I am not saying there is not a problem with the patent sys
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, the whole philosophy behind natural law (used by the founding fathers) is that individuals have inherent rights (like property) even if no government exists at all, but people (being social, but imperfect creatures) typically organize in the form of government to secure their rights.
So by that measure, property is not created by common consent or force.
Also, some of the other examples you pointed to, are not about property, but fraud or an intrusion of peoples privacy. Copyrights are not property eit
Re: (Score:2)
There are human cultures which never had any sort of property rights at all. Everything was either communal or owned by "Mother Earth". Private ownership wasn't ever considered.
Sounds pretty good, right? Until you realize that none of these cultures developed much past the writing stage and some not even that far. They never produced anything of any lasting importance either culturally or intellectually. Sure, the people living in these societies might have been pretty happy, until a disease came and w
Re:Patents are genocidial (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because someone calls something a property right, doesn't mean that it is a property right. Do you own slaves? Last I checked, me using an invention, doesn't stop you from using your own copy. If it seems a lot different than regular property, that's because it is.
Parent
subverting the system (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys think that they're helping... but the people who do the work (I'm thinking of some poor grad student in a lab somewhere) to make a working device go to the patent office and discover that they don't have rights to their own work. It's wonderful.
If you don't (or can't) use a patent, at least make it free. A couple hours "brainstorming" should not trump a few years of hard work.
ip law come full circle (Score:3, Insightful)
the idea of ip law is to reward those who innovate. the supposition being, that were there no legal protection, innovators would see the fruits of their intellectual pursuits go to established financial entities instead of themselves
and it is therefore the greatest irony that ip law is now used to suppress true innovation and protect entrenched financial entities. only the rich can afford the legal bully pulpit that ip law enables
ip law needs to disappear
but at best, we can ignore it, and route around it, like the damage it is
death to ip law
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the other side of that is whoever has the biggest distribution channel wins. You remove all barriers to distribution of something - no more licensing, royalties, patents, trademarks and copyrights - and now you have the big players out-distributing the small guys.
Think what happens when a song becomes "popular" and there are no barriers to distribution. Sony (or WalMart) just produces a CD. Maybe it is the original vocal talent, maybe not. Who cares? They win, the originator becomes a no
Re: (Score:2)
Ip law? (Score:2)
So what you're trying to say is something like this:
ip law add route null
Gladwell Loves them (Score:2)
Bill Gates, whose company, Microsoft, is one of the major investors in Intellectual Ventures, says, "I can give you fifty examples of ideas they've had where, if you take just one of them, you'd have a startup company right there."
Re: (Score:2)
He forgot to add, "Well, not anymore, of course, few startups will be able to afford the ridiculous fees we'll be charging. I just wish we had thought of this during the dot.com boom! Think of all the companies that would be paying us royalties today. Mmmm.... royalties...."
this the kind of innovation .. (Score:3, Interesting)
'NTP is a holding company [computerworld.com] created in 1992 to manage certain patents belonging to Thomas Campana'
'on 20 May 1991. Campana filed a patent application for his idea to merge existing e-mail systems with radio-frequency wireless [ieee.org] communication networks'
change patent law to use it or loose it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That plan ensures that nobody other tham large corporations will ever receive a patent again.
The "garage inventor" would be quickly displaced by a company that could exploit the invention. All they have to do is wait. Licensing a patent would be a thing of the past.
If the objective is to move all sources of revenue to major companies, well, I think you have hit on a real winner.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
working samples (Score:2)
This kind of bullshit would stop if the patent office required working implementations again.
The hard part of most inventions is making them work, not having the original idea. Granting patents on ideas that haven't been implemented harms innovation because it discourages people from investing the money to make inventions work.
MS wouldn't do this for free (Score:2)
Myhrvold is going in the direction he sees most defensible and profitable: We're just following what the law says and protecting our ideas.
The way I see it, Myhrvold is going to launch the attack before the public at large start realizing how dangerous the co
The public is only screwed for 20 years (Score:2)
The good thing about current patent law is that they'll only put the US and Europe 20 years behind places that don't give a hoot about patent infringement. After that, the field's open.
In a way, this is a good thing -- if they patent *everything* right now, and 99% of those things don't get addressed for lack of technology or resources, until the patents have expired, then all those research directions are an open field, for anyone to explore. You could look at this as a retarded version of open source (w