When you talk about IV, use the name Nathan Myhrvold. Hell, they have a picture of him right there.<p>One of the best measures we have against Mr. Myhrvold -- given that he seems interested in portraying himself as a public genius of some sort -- is to drag his name through the mud over this. He's not the guy who studied with Stephen Hawking. He's not the guy who wrote the molecular gastronomy tome. He's the very, very rich guy who wants to drag down the entire tech industry to get even richer.
From an interview of Nathan Myhrvold on Fareed Zakaria:<p>Zakaria: How worried are you that the United States is no longer going to be the place that invents the future?<p>Myhrvold: I'm very worried. Current course and speed --- we're very good at inventing, uh, but we're also undermining our ability to do that in lots of ways.<p><facepalm>
Why new, open, honest Microsoft is still doing it? Or, judging by this action, may be it's still the same, large company, and openness is just a facade?
I'm hoping this has to do with a change in policy in regards to these types of issues, but I'm skeptical. It could just be an anomaly.<p>We need a major tech company like Apple to take a stand against these types of lawsuits before we will see any real policy change.
not even sure if it's off topic but ex-IV senior manager Chris Somogyi is now a GM at NZ's newly created R&D/innovation/commercialisation agency:
<a href="http://www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz/about-us/key-people/executive-leadership-team" rel="nofollow">http://www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz/about-us/key-people/e...</a><p>I have no idea what he's up or why he was head-hunted to lil ol' NZ but an ex-IV guy in a major role in a central funding hub of an entire country's R&D system kind of weirds me out. My conspiracy tendencies are high normally, this takes it to 11. Any comments from a community that might have worked/interacted with him?
How come it is news that Apple invested in an IV fund in the past, but is not investing in this new IV fund, but it is not news that Google invested in an IV fund in the past, but is not investing (as far as we know) in this new IV fund? Or Yahoo? Or Nvidia?
Can someone explain the motivations of the major players here? The posted article references another Reuters article that goes into a little more detail: "Several large tech companies previously invested in IV, which gave them low-cost licenses to IV's vast patent portfolios as well as a portion of royalties IV collected." However, investments like this seem pretty short-sighted, and I would have thought that all players in the tech space would have woken up to the dangers of patent trolls years ago. What explains the continued behavior of Microsoft? Is this just another version of paying off the trolls to make them leave you alone?
I always thought there was a humorous irony in Mr. Myhrvold's half-baked efforts to eradicate malaria.<p>That's because IV itself is a parasite.
That's the sort of thing that I keep mind whenever I see Microsoft moving in the right direction (eg, by opening their C# compiler). I can't help but liken it to the mob giving some of its extortion money to charity in a bid to show that they're good people.
>in February, [Apple] complained that it has had to go to court with trolls 92 times in the last three years.<p>Yet Apple holds a $1Billion+ judgment on Samsung for violation of Apple's design patent for rectangular device with rounded corners in addition to "pinch and zoom" and "bounce back".