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As the economy continues to stumble along, companies and investors are working even harder to find ways to make a profit. This includes enforcing their patents. And these patent enforcement efforts have ensnared technology companies both large and small....   >>>

As the economy continues to stumble along, companies and investors are working even harder to find ways to make a profit. This includes enforcing their patents. And these patent enforcement efforts have ensnared technology companies both large and small.



The Associated Press reported on July 21 that activist investor Carl Icahn started pushing Motorola, which holds 17,000 patents, to start enforcing them in an effort to boost profits. After the news of Icahn’s recommendation surfaced, stocks for Motorola jumped.



The AP report reads:



There’s a scramble for patents by technology companies as they seek to shore up their litigation defenses. Nearly every maker of smartphones is suing another manufacturer over patents.



Enter, the National Public Radio program “This American Life,” which broadcast a report Sunday on “patent trolls,” companies that do not produce the products for which they hold a patent but sue other companies once they eventually do. Think “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” During the broadcast, the analogy to the children’s story was suggested by Intel’s former director of patents, Peter Detkin who coined the phrase “patent trolls. ” Keep that in mind, since we’ll get back to Detkin later.



The dissatisfaction with the current patent system in Silicon Valley is well known. Publications such as Technology Review and TechDirt write frequently about patent trolling. And the company that has received the most attention in the patent troll debate is Intellectual Ventures, which was founded by Microsoft’s former chief strategist and chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold. The company owns a number of patents and has been vigilant in pursuing individuals and companies they deem to be in violation of them. Intellectual Ventures’s investor list is a who’s-who of influential tech companies and universities, including eBay, Apple, Brown University, Cornell University, Cisco Systems, Adobe Systems, Intel and Microsoft — just to name a few. (PDF)



Myhrvold, of course, objects to the term “patent troll,” writing this in a column for Bloomberg: