TECHNICALLY SPEAKING TECHNOlOGY.It may be somewhat unusual to
start a column about innovation
with Nordic Illythology, but ir docs
have a purpose. Anyway, according
to folklore, trolls have big ears and
noses and they offen live undcr-
ground. They don't like sunlight
and they eat lots, inc1uding pcople,
so it's bcst not to go near them.
Now, ir's a long way from rhe
world of Nordic mythology to [hat
of th e Horflord B"siness Refliew
magazine, bur [he twO callle (0-
gethcr in March. The top story that
month was " Fundin!; Eureka!", by
Nathan Myhrvold, and it began
like this: "My compa ny,lntellcctu-
al Vcntures, is misunderstood. We
luve been ß.Y.ik..d as a patent
troll ... ., There it is, {hat word
" troll", but wirh "patent" before it.
Myhrvold then explains (hat his
company's aim is to bring together
ideas and investors. Bur first, let's
look at how th e system works.
Ler's say a technology company
goes bankrupt and has to seil its
patents. A patent troll will then buy
them, but with absolutely no inten-
tion of developing or seJling the
company's innovations or ideas.
What the troll will do insread is tO
aggressively insist on his patent
rights and SJ.K anyone he believes
might be jnfrjnging those newly
gained patents.
billion ['bllj~n)Becausc the cost of de fending
onese1f in such cases is vcry high,
particularly in the US, and as no
o ne knows how a jury will react,
the beSt thing to do might be to give
several hund red thousand dollars to
ehc patent troll, who will th en, w ith
luck, go away.And this brings us back to Nathan
Myhrvold, who was born in Searrle,
once worked with Stephen Hawking
ar Cambridge University and later
wem on to become chief [echnQIQ~
~ at Microsoft.
When he left Microsoft in 2000,
after 14 years wich the company,
Myhrvold was a very rich man, bur
he was not ready to retire. He rc-
porredly gor $S .b.i.J.li2n from in-
vestors and starred Intcllecrual Vcn-
rures. Bur it was not a vcotyre-
Gciral firm. Venture capitalises in-
vest in ideas that might become
profitable companics. Intellectual
Ventures, however, nies (0 find out
wheeher the ideas that lead tO inno-
vation can be patemed and then li-
censed co interested firms.
But the company has clearly gOt
an image problem. According co
some people, including Shane Rob-
ison, chief technology officer of
Hewlerr-Packard, it's a " very large"
troll. C ritics say that Intellectual
Ventures files for, or buys up, thou-
sands of patents from otheT organi-
zations. The details of these dealsMilliarde(n)
chief lechnology officer [-:tJi:ffCl.:'nnJ;)(/3LEfIS~] US
Eureka! fju·'ri:I.:~] Class. Greek
technische(r) Direlctor(in)
Heurekan"lch l1ab's gefunden!"")
utritClion hk'slnckJ·nJ
f air-halrtd [,fc~ 'hc~J
file 101' sth. (' fal' l b:l
go fund bankruet 5th. If,,"d[,g~ JC;;;~C'N:l)kr"p'1 =--
inITin,e sth. [m'frmd3]
lead IIcd]
non-disclosure agreement
Lnon revile sb. (ri'vßI-II dIS'kl:.o3,~,,;g~ri.~.m~'~"~<l_
sue sb. [sju:[
venlure ('vcnIJ~1
venl ure capilal l'ventJ;I ,ka:PIt>1]
4/2010
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Projekt, Unternehmung
Risikolcapitalare secret and, because ehe compa-
ny demands strict lloo-disclQsyrc
a!;reements. hardly anyone can say
how it makcs irs money. But ir could
be " trolling".In May 2008 , Ma1colm G ladwell
wrote about Nathan Myhrvold in
The New Yorker and had this to
say; " Myhr vold is of Nordic tx..:
[raction, and he looks every bit the
bearded, fajr-hajred Viking." Not
the type of Viking who burnedThe trotl; Is h e
hungr,. tor people
or patents?down villages and killed pcople,
adds Gladwell, but ehe type who at-
tempted to turn k.a.d. ineo gold.
Does "fair-haired Viking" so und
tlke a huge troll? While you're
thinking about that, here's an ex-
ample of a t ypica l patent war.
Last October, Nokia sued Apple,
saying that the maker of the iPhone
had infringed ten of its patents, in-
volving everything from wircless
data to security rcchnologies. Then,
in Decembcr, Apple sued Nokia,
saying [hat it had arrempted to copy
ehe iPhone and infringed 13 of Ap-
ple's patents while doing so. okia
is not a troll, of course, bur it is a
Nordic company. III
EAMONN FITZGERALD is a Munich-based
technology Journalist and biogger. He is
content manager of Spotlight Online.
Conlacl: e. f [email protected]Business 5p:ltlight 71