Latest Flash memory chips patent litigation
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December 8, 2010, 1:38 pm
Intellectual Ventures Goes to Court
By STEVE LOHR
Intellectual Ventures, the big investment firm that has bought up 30,000 patents, has long held out the threat of patent litigation against companies that do not agree to licensing agreements.
The company, based in Bellevue, Wash., and led by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer, made good on that threat on Wednesday. Intellectual Ventures filed three separate patent infringement suits against nine companies.
The move is certain to escalate the debate in the technology industry that surrounds Intellectual Ventures about its role and intentions. Admirers of Mr. Myhrvold see an innovator striving to elevate the economic role and the financial rewards for inventors. His critics see someone using a bulging patent portfolio and the threat of litigation as a way to extract costly payments from technology companies.
The three suits cover security software, standard memory and flash memory chips, and field-programmable gate array chips (specialized chips used in products including cellphones, aerospace and defense weaponry, and medical imaging equipment).
The largest companies sued include McAfee, Symantec and Hynix Semiconductor.
In an interview, Melissa Finocchio, chief litigation counsel for Intellectual Ventures, said it had either negotiated unsuccessfully with the companies sued or those companies had refused to talk. She called the suits the “smart, sensible next step.” The companies sued, she added, were using Intellectual Ventures’ patents without a license.
Only a few of Intellectual Ventures licensees have been named publicly, but they include Microsoft, Intel, Samsung and HTC.
Critics insist that Intellectual Ventures is little more than a giant patent troll. They call it “Intellectual Vultures.”
Name-calling aside, Ms. Finocchio replied, “We are no different from any other high-tech company that has valuable intellectual property.” The lawsuits, she added, are evidence that Intellectual Ventures will not hesitate to defend its valuable intellectual assets.
The other six companies sued were Check Point Software Technologies, Tend Micro, Elpida Memory, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor and Microsemi.
Intellectual Ventures Goes to Court
By STEVE LOHR
Intellectual Ventures, the big investment firm that has bought up 30,000 patents, has long held out the threat of patent litigation against companies that do not agree to licensing agreements.
The company, based in Bellevue, Wash., and led by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer, made good on that threat on Wednesday. Intellectual Ventures filed three separate patent infringement suits against nine companies.
The move is certain to escalate the debate in the technology industry that surrounds Intellectual Ventures about its role and intentions. Admirers of Mr. Myhrvold see an innovator striving to elevate the economic role and the financial rewards for inventors. His critics see someone using a bulging patent portfolio and the threat of litigation as a way to extract costly payments from technology companies.
The three suits cover security software, standard memory and flash memory chips, and field-programmable gate array chips (specialized chips used in products including cellphones, aerospace and defense weaponry, and medical imaging equipment).
The largest companies sued include McAfee, Symantec and Hynix Semiconductor.
In an interview, Melissa Finocchio, chief litigation counsel for Intellectual Ventures, said it had either negotiated unsuccessfully with the companies sued or those companies had refused to talk. She called the suits the “smart, sensible next step.” The companies sued, she added, were using Intellectual Ventures’ patents without a license.
Only a few of Intellectual Ventures licensees have been named publicly, but they include Microsoft, Intel, Samsung and HTC.
Critics insist that Intellectual Ventures is little more than a giant patent troll. They call it “Intellectual Vultures.”
Name-calling aside, Ms. Finocchio replied, “We are no different from any other high-tech company that has valuable intellectual property.” The lawsuits, she added, are evidence that Intellectual Ventures will not hesitate to defend its valuable intellectual assets.
The other six companies sued were Check Point Software Technologies, Tend Micro, Elpida Memory, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor and Microsemi.
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