PlainSite Exposes 2,000 Intellectual Ventures Shell Companies

http://www.plainsite.org/articles/article.html?id=2

by thinkcomp • 14 years ago

298 86 14 years ago

manhonest4• 14 years ago

I don't care what anyone says, Aaron Greenspan you have once again impressed me... can't say the same for Zuckerberg. Well done.

As for IV, I came across an amusing quote from their co-founder at a recent conference: he claimed, among other things, that 1. concerns about IV's consistent use of _cryptically-named_ shells[1] is a "red herring" and 2. for $80K any company could do a freedom-to-operate analysis on every claim in IV's entire portfolio.

1. You need not browse past page one of Aaron's list to get a taste of how descriptive the shell company names are. Take, for example, Aht Chu LLC. As the co-founder noted at the conference, thousands of shell companies with cryptic names are necessary because they make it easier for IV to segregate its IP assets. I suspect there might have some other advantages too. ;)

praptak• 14 years ago

> Take, for example, Aht Chu LLC.

Ok, this convinced me that Myhrvold is just the biggest troll on Earth, I'm just worried he might have got too immersed in his role.

"What the name of your company?"

"Aht Chu"

"Bless you! Now what's the name of your company?"

"Aht Chu"

"Awww, you seem to have a bad cold."

namank2• 14 years ago

Company list:

http://www.plainsite.org/tags/index.html?id=640

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

It's not possible to look at any page but the first one. Entering another number takes you to page with links to 24 hour Fitness and 3M Corporation. Also, clicking on the individual entries doesn't provide you with any evidence or a link to the USPTO record, just the company's mailing address.

Sounded interesting, but all we've got here is the badly-presented output of a web scraping session.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Hmm maybe we're not seeing the same thing this URI:

   //www.plainsite.org/tags/index.html?table=entitiestags&page=3&id=640

You can change the page=3 to any number between 1 and 44 to get more company names.

eteasley• 14 years ago

The page number field is working for me now.

damian20002• 14 years ago

He seems like a smart guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold ... wonder what made him turn his hand to patent litigation?

bryanh• 14 years ago

Money.

sp332• 14 years ago

Short but true. He has explained that, even though it doesn't really make sense, the current regulatory environment makes this business extremely profitable and it makes (business) sense to do it.

batgaijin2• 14 years ago

I don't buy that... and he knows he's villifying himself in the tech industry.

Perhaps I'm a bit of a romantic but I think he's doing it on purpose. If you know the game is rigged, and will have massive effects on the future of technological development, you have quite the motivation to show the flaws.

To anyone doubting me: think about it. We all know IV, these connections to shell corporations are new but they are also inevitable. Why wouldn't they play it slower? Why wouldn't they make sure there was no overlap?

These are technocrats; they know the smallest smudge can haunt them. Do you think the tracks were left by accident?

javajosh6• 14 years ago

I've heard him interviewed about his interest in cooking. He sounded like one of those fastidious geniuses who look at you like you're an insect - totally calculating, without a single molecule of empathy (you didn't know empathy had a molecule? well, it does).

I think with Intellectual Ventures he saw an opportunity to make a lot (more) money within the legal framework of the United States, and despite already having a great deal of money, he simply seized the opportunity. Money is nice, and more money is nicer. It's doubtful that he feels anything like remorse for the destruction his company has inflicted on the nation's innovators. No doubt he sees himself simply as a shrewd businessman who saw an opening and took it.

One of his rationalizations, if he is ever bothered to make one, might be, "Well, if I wasn't doing this someone else would be." Of course, that is true.

It's one of those times when I wish we lived in smaller communities, where people like Nathan would have to deal with the ire of the community - to look people in the eye, to see the hatred and the anger that his actions are causing. Barring that, the AIA is not enough, and we need legislation to put IV and it's ilk out of business for good. E.g. let's turn that hatred and anger that Myrvold never sees (and probably wouldn't care about if he did) into real political action to take his weapons away from him.

001sky6• 14 years ago

His book on cooking is called Modernist Cuisine, and is turning into something of a Landmark publishing/reference work. Its ~5 volumes and retails for ~$500 dollars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_Cuisine

Just begs the question, though. Doesn't this guy have something better to do? Dunno.

Joeri• 14 years ago

> One of his rationalizations, if he is ever bothered to make one, might be, "Well, if I wasn't doing this someone else would be." Of course, that is true.

Why would that be true? Nobody else is doing it at the scale of IV, despite nothing preventing it from happening. It's not because other people are capable of bad choices that you are excused for your own blunders. Ethics don't work that way.

manhonest4• 14 years ago

My guess: Getting repeatedly cautioned and perhaps threatened by patent lawyers while CTO at Microsoft. To use the cliche, he could not beat them so he joined them. IV is essentially a patent law firm that is its own client, or a company legal department minus the company; it was initially funded out of his own pocket. In my experience very few business people like lawyers or litigation and no sensible business person would have been inclined to invest millions in an idea like IV. But a man with Microsoft money and a grudge to settle with the world of patents and patent lawyers... anything is possible when you have that much cash. Some guys build failed music museums shaped like melting guitars[1], others start acquiring low quality patents en masse, forming short-lived shell companies with cryptic names and threatening innovators with patent litigation.

Now that they are bringing in revenue a business person might see things differently; maybe IV looks like a sensible investment. But trolling is still trolling. As with a law firm, they rely on the patent system to make money yet they produce nothing. They rely on fear of litigation to drive their "business". How long can they keep up the charade?

1. Interestingly, he's no stranger to frivolous patent litigation either. However like his museum, his attempts at bogus-patent-based extortion failed.

nikcub2• 14 years ago

> and no sensible business person would have been inclined to invest millions in an idea like IV.

Boy, you couldn't be more wrong. IV has raised $5.5 billion[0] from the likes of[1]:

* Adobe

* Amazon.com

* American Express

* Apple

* Cisco Systems

* Detelle Relay KG

* eBay, Inc.

* Google

* Microsoft

* Nokia

* Nvidia

* OC Applications Research

* SAP

* Sony Corp.

* TR Technologies

* Verizon

* Xilinx

* Yahoo

* Brown University

* Cornell University

* Grinnell College

* Mayo Clinic

* Northwestern University

* Stanford University

* University of Minnesota

* University of Pennsylvania

* University of Southern California

* University of Texas

* Allen SBH

* Bush Foundation

* Charles River Ventures

* Commonfund Capital Venture Partners

* Dore Capital

* Flag Capital

* Flora Family Foundation

* Hewlett Foundation

* Howard Hughes Medical Institute

* Legacy Ventures

* McKinsey and Co.

* Next Generation Partners

* Noregin Assets

* Reading Hospital

* Rockefeller Foundation

* Roldan Block NY

* Seqouia Holdings

* Skillman Foundation

* Sohn Partners

* Taichi Holdings

* TIFF Private Equity

* White Plaza Group

There seems to be a misunderstanding of who Intellectual Ventures are. Most people didn't know about them before the NPR stories that portrayed them as patent trolls (they are), but they are also well known as researches, as hiring a large number of great inventors and notable scientists, filing hundreds of their own patents for technologies developed in house, for inventing the mini-nuclear reactor that was spun out as Terrapower, for stratoshield - a proposed solution to global warming as featured in Freakanomics, for their mosquito gun based on star wars tech, for their battery research and also for making deals with over a hundred universities around the world for a right of first refusal on all new inventions.

They aren't only patent trolls, there is a lot more to the company - $1B p.a in revenue

IV started as an ideas/inventions marketplace. Myhrvold went to all of the large tech companies and pitch them on setting up a fund that would be like an OPEC for patents. Instead of each company individually fighting patent battles, they would invest in IV and that would give them access to an arsenal to help defend themselves. This did come from his experience with patents at Microsoft.

IV then went out and raised funds in a way similar to what VCs do - but instead of investing into tech companies they actively buy up patents and inventions on behalf of their fund LP's (Microsoft, Apple, etc. listed above). It is a way for these companies to defend themselves from patents and to outsource part of their R&D.

IV has purchased over 30,000 patents across their funds, have applied for another 2,000 or so themselves, have a network of 4,000 inventors in their marketplace and actively seek out inventors on their website[2].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures#Overview

[1] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/05/intellectual-venture...

[2] http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/inventor-netwo...

dguilder321• 14 years ago

In an interview he said he was unpopular in high school and it didnt bother him, so being unpopular because of IV doesnt bother him either. He's like a bitter nerd maniacally extracting his revenge on the world for his unhappy high school years.

ahi2• 14 years ago

There's a difference between unpopular and loathed.

001sky6• 14 years ago

I'd like to see the NY Times do investigative reporting like this.

NatW• 14 years ago

Agreed. NPR / This American Life did a great piece on Patent Trolls "When Patents Attack" (in case you missed it): http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w...

001sky6• 14 years ago

I'm thinking more of the data analytics-heavy reporting, reviewing public records and making them more accessible, etc. Almost a new breed of thinking and approach to the subject matter.

paulsutter• 14 years ago

I'm fascinated by the vexatious litigant point. Would a lawyer here care to comment on that?

Once found a vexatious litigant, an entity can no longer file suit in court. In California, for example, all it takes to be found a vexatious litigant is to file five unsuccessful lawsuits in seven years [1]. Could something similar be used to stop Intellectual Ventures somehow? I'd love to understand it.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation#United_Sta...

gottagetmac• 14 years ago

The provision you're referring to only applies to pro se litigants (people who represent themselves in court).

001sky6• 14 years ago

A litigant though is a 'legal person'. if you have 2000 legal entities (ie, legally== persons), it seems to help you on the math. But your question still stands and is a good one. Its not clear what role a common "controling entity" would have, for example, on the ability of affiliates, spv's and relatives/children to file or be found 'vexatious' etc.[1]

________

[1] INAL, but I think this question should be answerable.

rdl3• 14 years ago

While I'm generally against RICO as law, this seems like one case where it would be reasonable to apply.

grabeh• 14 years ago

Speaking in relation to the UK, a litigant would only be considered to be vexatious where a claim was considered to be without merit and was only being brought for the purpose of causing annoyance, which is a fairly high threshold to prove.

With IV, the issue is that they at least have an arguable case that patents they hold have been infringed. I would therefore think that they would not approach the threshold of being considered a vexatious litigant.

The problem is that the patents have been granted in the first place, and once granted, companies are free to use them as they please or at least argue their case. Of course, the same patents could be revoked in a court action but I acknowledge that the principal aim is to extract royalties from companies before the matter ever comes to court.

On the California provision you mention, this contains certain caveats which would mean the person would be free to file as many suits as they wanted where the claim was of a sufficiently low value. Presumably the provision is designed to prevent the individual representing themself from continuously filing frivolous suits against companies claiming vast damages, arguably due to the chilling effect this might have on companies doing business.

batgaijin2• 14 years ago

Now do bg3.

sidcool• 14 years ago

Can someone pls explain me what happened here?

charonn0• 14 years ago

Intellectual Ventures is a company who own the rights to large patent portfolios. Rather than use the patents to, say, make something useful, they sue or threaten to sue other companies. For various legal and PR reasons, they file suits using "shell" companies, a company wholly owned by Intellectual Ventures and which exists only or largely on paper.

They are exploiting a vulnerability in the system for profit and at the expense of system resources, stability, and usefulness.

There's no requirement that a private company disclose all the various names under which it operates, so the only way to list all the shell companies used by this one operation is to correlate thousands of public records held by the Patent Office to see which companies can be linked to Intellectual Ventures.

namank2• 14 years ago

instead of using patents to invent new things, they use patents to sue people and make money.

ahi2• 14 years ago

Which would only be sort of bad if the patents weren't shit.

rdl3• 14 years ago

This is the kind of stuff I wish WikiLeaks did.

001sky6• 14 years ago

Wanted: Wikileaks need a "growth hacker"

for a new business line: Organize, Understand public avail information=D

Jokes aside, it does takes some technical chop to get thru the garbage public records, apparently.

Elepsis• 14 years ago

At first glance, this list is a bit of a joke. Just on the first page you see Acco Brands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACCO_Brands) and Agere Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agere_Systems), which shows that not even the most rudimentary fact checking went into this effort.

Unfortunate, because I think they're trying to add transparency in an area where it's badly needed. But using such a blatantly inaccurate methodology undermines pretty much everything they're trying to do.

mherdeg• 14 years ago

Tom Ewing's paper ( http://stlr.stanford.edu/pdf/feldman-giants-among-us.pdf , datestamped Jan. 2012) says they've identified 1,276 shell companies, which is quite a bit lower than the 2,201 items listed by PlainSite.

(In his interview with Ira Glass, broadcast in July 2011, Ewing said there's "very close to 1,300" shell companies, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/TAL441_t... , so I guess he's been working on this for a while.)

manhonest4• 14 years ago

Other attempts at this task:

1. Google search: feldman-giants-among-us.pdf [+]

2. http://www.indiegogo.com/iv-thicket

+ Read this paper if you want to get a general idea of how IV operates.

MaysonL• 14 years ago

http://stlr.stanford.edu/pdf/feldman-giants-among-us.pdf

sytelus• 14 years ago

There is a strangely titled book written by one of the early Microsoft employee called "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" which describes authors interactions with Myrvold. It's a very enlightening and entertaining book to learn more about how Myrvold works.

One of the incidence in this book is as follows: Myrvold one day thinks of an idea that shadings in the picture can be compressed using electromagnetic equations. Basically look at the shading as charge field, solve EM equations to find what set of charge at which positions would produce that field. Then the position of charges becomes the description of the field. Trained eyes would immediately see issues here and discard this idea as naive version of optimization problem. However Myrvold probably has a patent on it.

javajosh6• 14 years ago

You know what's worse than patent trolls gaming the system? It's all of those people in the world who say, "Yeah, IV is smart. They've found a loophole and are exploiting it. Nothing to be done."

Wrong. Who runs this place? You and me. And if enough of us want to change the law to put IV and it's clones out of business, we can do it. This place is our home, our nation, and we get to decide what's allowed here. Our biggest challenge is not IV, but all of those people in the world who give IV and people like them a nod, a kind of respect, an admiring acknowledgement that they've abused the system and gotten away with it. It's the same respect given to influential bankers in Wall St and London, it was the same respect given to Bush, the same respect given to wealthy men accused of rape and murder who never serve time. Any and every action taken against these entities seems to either melt away entirely or result in a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile people who hack celebrity emails get 10 years hard time. People making $20k a year get audited and go to prison.

It is not okay. There is nothing to admire, and patent trolls are merely smug abusers of our society. Organizations that follow the letter of the law but ignore the principles behind them should inspire our strongest contempt. Their existence's only positive value is as a clarion call to vigorous action by our legislators to amend the law to close the gap between the letter and spirit. The longer we wait, the less legitimacy the rule of law has.

Our elected officials, the people we keep voting into office cycle after cycle, are far more interested in playing their political games. They do have some time leftover to actually govern. But governing takes common sense, and whatever they have is shattered by lobbyists who's only job is to undermine common-sense with smooth-sounding arguments - or, if that doesn't work, threats of withdrawing campaign support. Our leaders are dazzled by arguments of complexity when the heart of the problem is genuinely, truly simple:

Introduce and pass a bill to eliminate software patents, retroactively, and do it now.

lifeisstillgood• 14 years ago

I was reading an interview with Charlie Munger yesterday who was talking about why they gave Salmon Bros CEO the push in 1991 (he did not fire a trader who had been fraudulently trading). Munger said it was the same as when you find a little old lady with her hands in the till and she says it was the first time - you have to prosecute be aide if you don't it infects the whole system as corrupt

The USA has been amazingly lucky in eventually prosecuting its corruption (boss tweed, al Capone) but it feels that it is slipping.

Keep pushing

w_t_payne• 14 years ago

Actually, the USA has an abysmal and depressing culture of corruption and venality. The casual attitude to petty (and not-so-petty) corruption in the USA is endemic, and extremely damaging. The media have a role to play in combating this, as does the general public.

nathanhammond• 14 years ago

As a point of agreement, the US DOJ's current interaction with HSBC for laundering drug money, as documented by Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageo...

1337biz• 14 years ago

I am not quite sure if things are really that bad for the US as you describe. You are absolutely right on most points, but I think that the US is in general more tolerant towards people operating in gray areas or gaming the system.

I also would argue that this is the basis for many disruptive innovations and startups like Uber or Airbnb would have had a hard time growing up in stronger regulated environments. Of cause this doesn't change the fact that patent trolls are a menace to innovation.

narag• 14 years ago

A difference: IV works because there is a disfunctional regulation in place, while the others work despite the regulations.

law6• 14 years ago

> Organizations that follow the letter of the law but ignore the principles behind them should inspire our strongest contempt.

And who establishes these principles? To suggest that an organization must additionally follow some ambiguous set of principles putatively inspiring an established law is the pinnacle of arrogance. How can a country function if its members (citizens and organizations alike) cannot look to the letter of the law to decide whether their conduct conforms therewith?

If you don't like the fact that some companies are legally engaging in contemptuous behavior, then change the law. That's the whole point of Congress--to legislate. Suggesting that laws additionally be subject to motivating principles comports with judicial supremacy, which is to say it's the courts (rather than our elected officials) who decide what the law is. That's not how this country is supposed to work.

morsch• 14 years ago

He's not saying they must conform with these ambiguous rules. But if they don't, it's fair to be contemptuous of them. There is nothing at all unusual about this, there are lots of actions that won't get you in jail but will get you punished in various social manners.

Social pressure can later be codified into a legal solution, but in some cases the rules are necessarily ambiguous and resist codification, in which case social pressure is the next best thing.

javajosh6• 14 years ago

>If you don't like the fact that some companies are legally engaging in contemptuous behavior, then change the law.

That was the main thrust of what I wrote! So what's with all the other angry stuff? I am honestly confused by the rest of your post.

arbuge2• 14 years ago

This post says it.

"Introduce and pass a bill to eliminate software patents, retroactively, and do it now." --- agreed, 100%

Even more frustrating than the current situation is the fact that it's likely to continue for the forseeable future unless we do something about patent trolls. As hinted at in the original article, the legislation in progress now is pretty much useless and not going to make much difference at all as far as trolling is concerned. Far more powerful stuff is needed.

Aside: it's mentioned in that article that if IV personally filed all its suits, the courts would likely consider it a vexatious litigant. If so, shouldn't the cheap gimmick of using shell companies to get around this be seen through and ruled ineffective by the courts?

monochromatic2• 14 years ago

You lose credibility when you compare president Bush to rapists and murderers. A lot of people don't like him, I get that... but you sound like an ideologue.

javajosh6• 14 years ago

Then ignore that part. But I stand by it: in my opinion George W. Bush, and the total lack of response to his gross misdeeds, did more damage to America and the American spirit than any single event in US history. We are still paying for our unwillingness to censure or impeach a President who abused his power like Bush did. He misled us into a bloody, expensive, unnecessary war (Iraq), legalized torture, legalized indefinite imprisonment without trial (Gitmo), outed a CIA operative to punish a political enemy, got an old pal to take the heat for it, then commuted the pal's sentence when he was convicted (Scooter Libby), implemented a warrantless wiretapping program at the NSA, he praised the grossly incompetent head of FEMA (who's inaction cost lives) during Katrina. That's just off the top of my head. These aren't accusations, or 'fanciful theories' (the defining characteristic of an ideologue - I looked it up), they are just things that Bush did, which he did openly and which are a matter of public record. Bush set the example that many leaders both public and private are still following to this day.

I credit Bush with one thing though: I never identified strongly as an American before his presidency. Before Bush I never really stopped to think what being American meant, I just took it for granted, and it only made sense to me when, one by one, the tenets that had been so strongly ingrained in me, beliefs that I didn't even know were there, were taken away. Americans don't torture people. We don't initiate wars (well, we do, but not on my watch). We don't imprison people indefinitely without trial. We don't invade people's privacy without a warrant. We don't degrade and demean our citizens for security theater.

And we don't let people who produce nothing but paperwork extort money from those who create real wealth.

brazzy• 14 years ago

Bush is a war criminal, plain and simple. That actually makes him a lot worse than rapists and murderers.

IheartApplesDix• 14 years ago

That's not going to happen until all the largest software companies have shored up their infrastructure to the point that they can start ripping off inventors easily by having served them the resources needed to get off the ground and control the internet portals required to do business (by law, because you know fraud and terrorism). That's when software patents will be eliminated and not a minute sooner.

stelliosk• 14 years ago

Keyser Soze was either German or Turkish in the movie, the Hungarian mob were going to buy the only guy who could identify Keyser Soze from a group of Argentinians!

scanr• 14 years ago

I just had a thought. What if Myhrvold has realised that the only way that the patent system can be changed is if he brings innovation to a halt completely using Intellectual Ventures. Only he can't tell anyone because he believes that if he does, it will undermine his efforts.

Yes. This is somewhat flippant. Hopefully his motivations aren't relevant and IV still acts as a catalyst for change. The real danger, I suppose, is regulatory capture. I wonder how much lobbying IV does.

DannyBee2• 14 years ago

1. If Nathan believes that, he's been lying/hiding it from every person in the world, repeatedly

2. IV does a large amount of lobbying, particularly against bills that, for example, asked for patent damages to only be given in the amount the patented part was of the whole.

IE In prior law, you used to be able to get damages as a royalty on the full price of the product, even if the infringed patent was in a 2 cent part of a $20,000 product

IV lobbied heavily against this provision (I don't have an exact figure, but they are now within the top 5 money wise on patent issues and are always present at various conferences/testimony/etc ). Same with things like post-grant reexams, stronger obviousness protections, etc.

Hey, but maybe that's part of the front!

If they didn't lobby against helping the patent system, it would undermine their efforts to help the patent system because then we'd know they weren't genuine.

Sorry, but all these conspiracy theories that Nathan really is trying to be helpful are hilarious. Some people just realize they can make money by exploiting the world, and Nathan is one of them.

larrys• 14 years ago

Actually I'm not sure what value you can get from this list at all.

This is the methodology:

"Then we tagged all of the companies that have links to attorneys and mailing addresses frequently used by Intellectual Ventures. The resulting list is about 2,000 companies.

We have not verified that each and every company is definitely a shell corporation for Intellectual Ventures (doing so would be prohibitively expensive), but some obvious overlaps are apparent: managing corporations, telephone numbers, and other factors."

Right off the top I'm noticing a number of the same addresses which are, in fact, addresses for well know companies in Delaware that register companies and corporations ("The Company Corporation" is one of them). I've used them. I'm not sure this information really provided is of much help.

Most importantly, plainsite labeling this as a statement of fact "PlainSite exposes the Intellectual Ventures shell game." and the HN title "Plainsite Exposes 2000 IV Shell Companies" is clearly wrong (as a reading of the text I've quoted shows).

jp--13• 14 years ago

I would suggest the methodology make use of not only the assignments data from the patent offices but also the data from as many state company registries as possible. It's not easy because there is no harmonization of this type of data among all US states and some (Delaware, Nevada, etc.) deliberately make it easy for companies to hide information about who owns them.

There's one more idea I had. You could also search trademark data under the assumption that short-lived shell companies do not register trademarks for their company name, unlike most legitimate businesses that offer products and services to society.

PlainSite Exposes 2,000 Intellectual Ventures Shell Companies

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