Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents of Microsoft's Largest Troll, Intellectual Ventures, Are Sold to be Used Offensively

When Microsoft does not sue directly, as it habitually does, one can count on Intellectual Ventures to step in, if not one of the many shells or shadowy clients of Intellectual Ventures

Related (March 2017): It Certainly Looks Like Microsoft is Already Siccing Its Patent Trolls, Including Intellectual Ventures, on Companies That Use Linux (Until They Pay 'Protection' Money)

Ballmer on patents
Full, 6-frame explanation of Microsoft's strategy



Summary: Intellectual Ventures, the world's largest patent troll which came from Microsoft, remains active and its shadow can be found in newly-filed patent cases, including requests for embargo

MICROSOFT loves to pretend to have changed its patent stance (the media habitually helps such pretenses), but Microsoft is a breeding ground to patent trolls, including the world's largest. Michael Loney from Managing IP calls this nasty patent troll a "PAE", which is certainly something it is not. The FTC recently published a study warning about such trolls and the ITC occasionally helps trolls, by means of embargoes.



Mr. Loney has written:

A recent Intellectual Ventures lawsuit filed with a companion ITC complaint may be a sign of what is to come in patent assertion entity litigation, with one observer describing it as “a formidable new change”. The ITC has now instituted the investigation against car manufacturers and parts makers


So a massive patent troll is trying not just to tax companies (including those which distribute Linux) but also to embargo, i.e. ban them from the marketplace.

"So a massive patent troll is trying not just to tax companies (including those which distribute Linux) but also to embargo, i.e. ban them from the marketplace."The 'new Microsoft'? The mask slips off again?

Another new post, this one from friends of Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures, notes that this nasty patent troll of Microsoft is passing patents to other companies and these patents are used for litigation right now. To quote the relevant part:

Of the 11 grants that ASML and Zeiss are asserting, four were picked up from Intellectual Ventures via a Dutch corporate entity called Tarsium BV (the patent nos. are 6,731,335, 7,297,916, 8,149,312 and 8,625,017). The remaining seven originated with HP and also found their way to ASML/Zeiss via Tarsium. IV appears to have transferred its patents to Tarsium in November 2014, but it has only just shown up in the USPTO assignment database as part of a nunc pro tunc assignment with a recorded date of April this year. IV picked up the quartet of grants in 2011 from an entity called Crosstek Capital LLC as part of a portfolio of more than 300 assets — prior to Crosstek they were owned by Magnachip Semiconductor.

Although IV has built a portfolio that stretches into the tens of thousands, as its sale to Tarsium shows, it has also been open to making sales. As this blog exclusively reported in April, the firm has stopped making acquisitions for its most recent fund and has significantly upped its rate of sales.


So it is indeed like an arms broker. It fuels litigation now.

"Intellectual Ventures, for instance, has used thousands of proxies and now it's just selling patents for others to carry out the litigation."The unfortunate thing is, these patent trolls are morphing to hide their real identity. Intellectual Ventures, for instance, has used thousands of proxies and now it's just selling patents for others to carry out the litigation. Will US politicians take note of it?

Dennis Crouch says that "Congress Continues to See Need to Reduce Abusive Patent Litigation," but if firms like Intellectual Ventures foster legal chaos not directly, will it be noticed at all? As Crouch put it the other day, the "approach here is that patent litigation reform is being linked with civil litigation reform generally – and Republican control suggests making it more difficult to bring claims. Recognize that a number of influential parties, including IPO, have called for reforms to strengthen patent rights – so far that is getting no traction among Republican leadership."

"They just want 'protection' money based on unspecified threats. This is clearly racketeering and should be treated as such."This ought to be a bipartisan issue. A lot of people out there are hurt by patent trolls; consider this new story of Kevin O'Connor. As this new campaign against trolls put it, a "letter Kevin O’Connor’s #smallbiz received from a #patenttroll didn’t even name the #patent in question..."

They just want 'protection' money based on unspecified threats. This is clearly racketeering and should be treated as such. From a legal perspective, this is quite likely a violation of the law. What's worth noting here is that Microsoft now exercises a strategy of proxying at two levels; first it outsources a lot of the trolling activities to Intellectual Ventures, which in turn outsources the litigation to thousands of shells (based on the mainstream media's reports). Microsoft too has its own in-house troll, called "Microsoft Technology Licensing".

But hey, Microsoft says it "loves Linux"... it even distributes free buttons that say so.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
 
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day