Bonum Certa Men Certa

Intellectual Ventures Called a Microsoft Spinoff, Has Strong Ties to Bill Gates

Bill and Nathan
Microsoft's 'gentle' side and the thuggish side.
Good cop, bad cop. Credit: Reuters



Summary: How the cult of Microsoft, which includes Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold (peripherally), is taxing everything in society while working in cohesion

Having exposed one patent troll of rather large scale very recently, the New York Times moves on to the largest one. It notes the Microsoft connection: "Co-founded by Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft, a prolific inventor and the author of a $625 cookbook called “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking,” Intellectual Ventures has vacuumed up 70,000 patents and related assets in the last 13 years. This year, the company has been busier than ever at the courthouse, filing 14 lawsuits so far — more than all the lawsuits it had previously filed since its founding in 2000. It also is expanding its fight beyond traditional technology companies. Eight of the 14 lawsuits are against banks, which Intellectual Ventures says infringed on patents that cover data encryption techniques, firewall protection systems or digital imaging."

There is also a connection to the Gates Foundation, which uses patents to profit. IV's chief troll is dodging probe by deposition and his sidekick at Intellectual Ventures keeps on lying and deceiving. “We don’t litigate through shell companies,” said Intellectual Ventures, but these are lies. As correctly pointed out here, we should treat this troll as a Microsoft spinoff:



The New York Times went after another big patent troll yesterday, the second in less than a week link here. This one is called Intellectual Ventures. It seems to be a spinoff from Microsoft, a major patent holder, as it is run by Microsoft's former chief technology officer, Nathan Myhrvold. Its origin may raise the question as to how much business it does with Microsoft and whether it profits in some way from the new enterprise.


Here is another take on it:

A study out of Stanford says the term “patent troll” may have come from the Norwegian folk tale, “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” Researchers claimed it was coined, ironically, by a co-founder of the country’s biggest PAE — Intellectual Ventures. A troll makes three billy goats pay a price to cross a bridge. Adorable. But less adorable, and more exciting, is the version of trolls in “The Lord of the Rings,” where trolls try to eat their nemeses, so let’s go with that.



This troll also helps Gates with nuclear patents, as we covered several times before. Bill Gates and his close friend Nathan Myhrvold like to share a table and conspire to gain patents, as previously reported in the press. Gates promotes GMO (DNA) and medicine patents, pushing patents in an evil direction while calling it charity. Dr. Glyn Moody is upset that even blood is being patented now. He writes: "Two of the key arguments during the Myriad Genetics trial were that gene patent monopolies stifle innovation by preventing others from building on and extending key knowledge, and that they can cause unnecessary suffering and even death by driving up prices for medical treatment beyond the reach of many people. Even though the Supreme Court struck down Myriad's key patents, reducing those issues for DNA, a new technology with major ramifications for health runs the risk of suffering from precisely the same problems."

Further down it says: "Not all clinical trials offer compensation, because people are often willing to help without payment in order to benefit society as a whole. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments for making clinical trial information freely available is that it is largely the result of members of the public agreeing to take part in trials for precisely this reason -- not in order to boost the profits of some pharmaceutical company that keeps the results for itself. That suggests one way of encouraging people to become stem cell donors and transfusion recipients would be to promise that the results based on their participation will be made freely available for all scientists and companies to use. In other words, that no patents would be taken out on key discoveries."

Here is the original article. Recall that an AIDS organisation manager told the New York Times that “Gates has created a huge blood-buying operation that only cares about money, not about people.”

Incidentally, earlier today we found this new article which chastised plutocrats for hoarding more money at the expense of the poor and then blaming teachers. Gates, which is eliminating the poor rather than poverty is mentioned in the article. To quote:

Poverty is what’s crippling public education in the US—not bad teachers



[...]

Teachers are important, and of course we want to recruit the most expert and brightest possible, and give them lots of support. But the expansion of tests, and efforts to make teacher jobs depend on ever-rising scores, are turning our schools into test preparation factories.

Hanushek’s ideas have been driving a vast school reform project, which has been underwritten by the largest philanthropies on earth—starting with the Gates and Walton foundations. Now that this project is a decade old, and showing little signs of success, the time has come for a major reappraisal.

Rather than vesting our trust in tests to identify and weed out the worst teachers, why not invest some confidence in these teachers themselves, and empower them to engage in peer observation and growth through proven programs like Peer Assistance and Review? These programs feature experienced teacher coaches working with peers who have been identified as struggling. This has been found to be an effective way to strengthen teachers—and remove those who are unable to improve.


Opportunists love monopolies. Government services are monopolies, but can Gates privatise these to 'own' for profit a system fed by taxpayers? He sure made progress by bribing much of the press. The same is done to promote patent trolling.

It is worth noting that the other Microsoft co-founder is now a patent troll, who just like Attachmate's CEO and Microsoft's OEM-terrorising thug (shooting animals illegally) is now getting sued for being a sociopath who contributes to illegal hunting. A short while ago we found this new report from Africa:

Microsoft co-founder and American billionaire, Paul Allen, will appear before a Botswana court in October for allegedly attempting to smuggle giraffe bones from the country to the United States of America.

According to the King County Superior Court, a safari guide was arrested and detained in Maun, Botswana’s tourism capital, by customs officials after the Microsoft co-founder and current Seahawks owner, Allen, and his sister, Jody Allen, tried to sneak home the bones while on safari in Botswana.

Court papers charge that a review of the trip to Botswana by the Allens has revealed a pattern of illegality.


Microsoft has always shown a pattern of illegality, so this would not at all be shocking. See our 2011 post titled "Microsoft's Three Musketeers (Gates, Allen, Myhrvold) Still Assault the Market With Patents."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Throwing Money at Lawyers Can't Stop Us (It Never Did)
Even just trying to censor things can result in the opposite of the desired outcome
BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
 
Links 14/06/2025: FDA Changes Priorities, Cassette Data Storage From The 1970s
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Steam Next Fest and Thoughts on Gemini
Links for the day
Site/Datacentre Maintenance Next Week
speed things up
Bulgaria: GNU/Linux Near 10%
The Bulgarian market seems to be changing
I Never Spoke to BetaNews. But BetaNews Wants to Ensure I Never Will, Either.
Sometimes just the reluctance to talk about it can say a great deal
Online Search or Large Search Engines Aren't Working Anymore
business models that directly compete with interests of Web users
Holidays and Breaks
I've hardly taken any long breaks since I got married
Danish OpenDocument Freedom
"year of Linux"
When Abusive Law Firms (Working for Microsofters Against Us) Assert That Someone Writing in Social Media About Himself is Confidential Information
There was no reason to throw "GDPR" into 2 SLAPPs; they know it, but the goal was to increase the cost of a Defence and lessen the incentive to challenge the SLAPPs
Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025