Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Patent Troll is Going After Banks Now, Expanding to Large-scale Racketeering Using Pyramid Scheme With Approximately 2,000 Proxies

Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Gates' very close friend, created an ever-expanding pyramid scheme

Nathan Myhrvold



Summary: The criminal operation of Bill Gates' close friend is getting further explored and the more gets revealed, the more urgent it seems to arrest the perpetrators

The Microsoft- and Gates Foundation-backed patent troll known as Intellectual Ventures just keeps growing and growing. It devours a lot of the industry using patent tax which accompanies extortion and lobbying. This should be criminal and those behind it would be better off in some padded cell. They are dangerous sociopaths with friends in high places.



“Remember a few months ago, when Intellectual Ventures said that there was nothing at all nefarious about their 2,000 or so shell companies?”
      --Mike Masnick
One key person in this extortion racket is Peter Detkin, whom we wrote about before. Companies like CBS help whitewash him and others, impeding federal action that should shut it all down in the name of RICO Act. One longtime critic of this extortion racket writes about new facts, starting with some background: "Nearly two years ago, This American Life did an incredible episode about patents and patent trolling, which really got the issue of patent trolling into the mainstream. At the center of that episode was an exploration into Intellectual Ventures, the world's largest, most obnoxious patent troll. The story revolved around one single patent (5,771,354), which Intellectual Ventures itself had held up as an example of how they were really just helping the poor, brilliant, lone inventor who was being ripped off. In that story, This American Life reporter/producer Alex Blumberg and NPR New reporter Laura Sydell tried to follow the story of that patent to exonerate Intellectual Ventures and show that, indeed, it was helping small inventors get their due. But the story turned out to not stand up to even the slightest amount of scrutiny. Because when they went in search of the inventor, Chris Crawford, he refused to respond to them, and then IV itself noted that it had "sold off" the patent and it was currently engaged in litigation. The entity doing the litigation was a company called Oasis Research, which had an empty office in Marshall, Texas with no employees, but had sued over a dozen internet companies for broadly doing online backup.

"In a hilarious exchange with IV's Peter Detkin, the guy who coined the phrase patent troll but now likes to delude himself that he's not an executive at the world's largest troll, pretended that it was some sort of "ambush" when Blumberg simply asked him to explain when IV bought the patent from Crawford and then when and to whom they sold it, based on the data on the US Patent Office's own website. Hilariously, Detkin insisted that he hadn't looked at the USPTO website, so he didn't know what was going on."

According to the following paragraph, there are now over or around 2,000 proxies, not about 1,100 as reported a few years ago. This is a pyramid schemes and there are laws against such schemes. Masnick writes: "Remember a few months ago, when Intellectual Ventures said that there was nothing at all nefarious about their 2,000 or so shell companies? Perhaps they knew what was coming... which was a pretty clear expose of how Intellectual Ventures is very much the same sort of entity that Peter Detkin once claimed were hellbent on holding up innovation. Except, now he's profiting from it. Massively. While pretending not to."

"There is a law against this. There may even be several laws against this."Here is another interesting new bit about this pyramid scheme: "Well-known non-practicing entity Intellectual Ventures has been fairly quiet on the litigation front, particularly as compared to other high-profile NPEs. And when IV has filed suits, it has generally targeted technology companies, such as semiconductor manufacturers, handset makers, or telecom service providers. But earlier this week, IV branched out into new territory, suing the First National Bank of Omaha in Nebraska district court and accusing the bank of infringing several patents (including some potentially standard-essential patents)."

There is a law against this. There may even be several laws against this. The proxies act as a shield (obfuscation) against enforcement of the law, or even an investigation.

This is only starting to show the scope of this racketeering operation, which was more recently whitewashed by CBS (aided perpetually by the corporate media that won't do journalism which can result in arrests for racketeering and pyramid schemes).

Intellectual Ventures is neither a company nor a firm. It is a criminal operation, operating with impunity.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually
Participation in Cancel Culture Detrimental to One's Career
A cautionary tale
Passion Wins
we've increased the number of birds we feed to 100+
How Solderpunk and Sean Conner Started Gemini Protocol (and, Collectively, Geminispace) Back in 2019
Based on the "official" history
Arduino is Now a Patent Bully (Qualcomm)
Qualcomm has just bought Arduino
Many Years of Microsoft Cancellations and Faked (Acquired) Revenue "Growth"
XBox is basically the "next Skype"
The Comment TheLayoff.com Has Just Censored for Criticising a Ridiculous Puff Piece of IBM Management
If comments get censored for their "style" rather than their substance, then society will be worse off
The Power of Writing Down Facts
The more we write and publish, the more people will know what happened
Microsoft's Non-Denying Denial About XBox's Death is Already Being Shattered to Pieces
Like Microsoft's 'open' 'hey hi', heralding meaningless non-committing agreements with AMD is little more than vapourware
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Joins the Slopfarms Club
Slopfarms gonna slop
Links 07/10/2025: Privacy at Risk, GAFAM Remains Off the Hook
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Modern Retro Console Idea and Batch vs Bash
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: International Criminal Court (ICC) Convicts Ali Kushayb; Moroccan Imprisoned for 'Offensive' Shirt
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: EU' Chat Control is Back, US Cracks Down on Democracy
Links for the day
Techrights Pursues Justice and Truth Because, Without Those, Society Descends Into Chaos
most people reject dogma and pseudoscience
Upcoming Talks by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Göteborg, and Rome
Join with him and share the software
Something Bad is Happening in the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
The latest OSI blog post is from a Microsoft operative and a few weeks ago the Executive Director left
TLS 1.3 Dominates Geminispace (99% of Known Capsules)
it's nowadays safe to assume almost every capsule can handle TLS 1.3
Why soylentnews.org Has Been Having Technical Difficulties Lately
The network has been going up and down quite a lot this past week
A Statement Against Violence
The facts are on our side
They've Run Out of Things to Rebrand or Label as "AI"
The next few years will be interesting because if Microsoft lays off tens of thousands of workers each year, there won't be much left except mountains of debt and dying brands
The Register MS is Still Being Paid to Participate in the "AI" Ponzi Scheme Which Will Crash the Economy
The Register MS is hoping to get lucky by tricking people into a scam
Richard Stallman Confirms His Talk in Göteborg This Coming Friday
"The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state"
Most of the "Linux" Results This Morning in Google News Are LLM Slop From the Same Slopfarm, Plagiarising Phoronix
The main question is, does Google even care at this point?
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Civil War and "Goodbye Web"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 06, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 06, 2025