On 26/07/2011 00:21, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote:


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [A2k] When Patents Attack (NPR)
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:12:23 -0400
From: Manon Ress <manon.ress@keionline.org>
To: a2k discuss list <a2k@lists.keionline.org> 


FYI: Great NPR radio show on Saturday re patent trolls and patents and
innovation in general

When Patents Attack
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/25/138576167/when-patents-attack

Planet Money's Alex Blumberg and NPR's Laura Sydell co-reported this
week's episode of This American Life. Check out TAL's "Ways to Listen"
page to find out when the show airs on your local station, and how you
can download the podcast. Here's the story.

Nathan Myhrvold is a genius and a polymath. He made hundreds of
millions of dollars as Microsoft's chief technology officer, he's
discovered dinosaur fossils, and he recently co-authored a six-volume
cookbook that "reveals science-inspired tech­niques for prepar­ing
food."

Myhrvold has more than 100 patents to his name, and he's cast himself
as a man determined to give his fellow inventors their due. In 2000,
he founded a company called Intellectual Ventures, which he calls "a
company that invests in invention."

But Myhrvold's company has a different image among many Silicon Valley insiders.

The influential blog Techdirt regularly refers to Intellectual
Ventures as a patent troll. IPWatchdog, an intellectual property site,
called IV "patent troll public enemy #1." These blogs write about how
Intellectual Ventures has amassed one of the largest patent portfolios
in existence and is going around to technology companies demanding
money to license these patents.

[...]

Continua qui: 
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/25/138576167/when-patents-attack



-- 
Manon Anne Ress
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20009 USA
http://www.keionline.org
manon.ress@keionline.org

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Caro Juan Carlos,
                            l'articolo che citi, letto con attenzione, è la dimostrazione che hanno ragione quei pochi  che aspettano con ansia il giorno in cui lo statuto del brevetto sarà soppresso del tutto.
Cito testualmente:
 "Nathan Myhrvold is a genius and a polymath. He made hundreds of millions of dollars as Microsoft's chief technology officer, he's discovered dinosaur fossils, and he recently co-authored a six-volume cookbook that "reveals science-inspired tech­niques for prepar­ing food." Myhrvold has more than 100 patents to his name"
Myhrvold ha fondato un'azienda di grande successo, chiamata "Intellectual Ventures". Proseguo nelle citazioni: "Intellectual ventures  pays inventors for patents. It gathers patents together into a huge warehouse of inventions that companies can use if they want. It's sort of like a department store for patents: Whatever technology you're looking for, Intellectual Ventures has it.
The company even has its own massive lab, with people walking around in white lab coats, mixing chemicals in beakers and looking at stuff under microscopes. There's a machine shop. A nanotechnology section. It's like a playground for scientists and engineers.
Intellectual Ventures has invented a nuclear technology that's safer and greener than existing technologies. A cooler that can keep vaccines cold for months without electricity. And the world's most high-tech mosquito zapper".
Poichè l'articolo è molto lungo, chiudo con una citazione che mi pare più significativa di altre:
"The pitch he heard was, basically, Intellectual Ventures helps defend against lawsuits. Intellectual Ventures has this horde of 35,000 patents — patents that, for a price, companies can use to defend themselves.

Technology companies pay Intellectual Ventures fees ranging "from tens of thousands to the millions and millions of dollars ... to buy themselves insurance that protects them from being sued by any harmful, malevolent outsiders," Sacca says.

There's an implication in IV's pitch, Sacca says: If you don't join us, who knows what'll happen?

He says it reminds him of "a mafia-style shakedown, where someone comes in the front door of your building and says, 'It would be a shame if this place burnt down. I know the neighborhood really well and I can make sure that doesn't happen.' "
Raf