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Patent Trolling in Action: Big Patent Firm Sues Nine Tech Firms

Good example of patent trolling at work. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with patent trolls: this is a natural result of having a patent system.1

Update: see als0 Peter Zura’s post on the 271 Patent Blog, *** Intellectual Ventures Launches Massive Litigation Across 3 Industries ***.

Big Patent Firm Sues Nine Tech Firms

Intellectual Ventures LLC, which has spent a decade buying and filing for patents, named nine big technology companies as defendants in its first-ever infringement suits.

The closely held firm was co-founded by former Microsoft Corp. chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold, who had avoided litigation for years but never ruled it out.

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Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ventures.

Intellectual Venture’s lawsuits focus on patents in the fields of computer security and semiconductor technology. One suit names Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc., Trend Micro Inc. and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

Another targets Elpida Memory Inc. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. A third names Altera Corp., Lattice Semiconductor Corp. and Microsemi Corp., which recently acquired Actel Corp.

The lawsuits, all filed in federal court in Delaware, seek unspecified damages. None of the defendants could immediately be reached for comment.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703493504576007444122372926.html#ixzz17YP8WbEV

  1. See my Patent Trolls and Empirical Thinking; Patent Law, State Courts, and Free Speech: The Case of Troll Tracker. []
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