THE collapse of Novell, Nortel and now Kodak have shown us what happens to orphaned patents and one of our readers spotted this article about OnLive. It says: "To complicate matters further, Dent believes that OnLive does not actually own any of its patented technology. Those patents are owned by a research and development company called Rearden Labs, which licenses the IP to OnLive. Rearden Labs is owned by OnLive's CEO, Steve Perlman. By transferring Rearden Lab's IP from OnLive to a new entity and filing for ABC bankruptcy in OnLive's name, Perlman is essentially able to ‘restart' OnLive with a new investor without having to pay OnLive's staff their share of equity. If staff are re-hired to be a part of the new business, they are not necessarily entitled to the same stock and benefits as they were at OnLive. This raises questions about the ethical practices of the business."

"The costs of litigation are passed to the public. These also reduce the number of technology jobs."Expect sites with pro-patents/"IP" bias to keep on pretending that patents are a good thing (more on that in the next post), despite all that we currently see in Apple and Samsung litigation. As one writer put it: "We are about to reach the climax of a very big war among multi-national technology companies. The chess pieces of this war will be intellectual property (IP). In all war there is collateral damage and in the IP battles that damage is two-fold effecting consumers and smaller technology companies."

The costs of litigation are passed to the public. These also reduce the number of technology jobs. ⬆