Intellectual Ventures goes global

The patent holding company, Intellectual Ventures is going global. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Intellectual Ventures LLC, a low-profile investment firm run by former Microsoft Corp. executive Nathan Myhrvold, is laying plans to go global: It hopes to raise as much as $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from universities in Asia.

The move could help the firm, formed seven years ago to purchase patents and help inventors dream up new ones, expand its already-vast store of patents. But the new push also could exacerbate concerns that Intellectual Ventures will begin launching lawsuits to pressure companies to pay for use of its intellectual property.

Mr. Myhrvold said that his firm hasn't sued anybody for patent infringement but that he can't rule it out in the future.

Intellectual Ventures, which said it couldn't comment on any current fund raising, employs about 200 people. It is also raising another, separate fund valued at more than $1 billion to buy up existing patents globally, people familiar with the matter say.

Until now, the firm has focused mainly on buying existing patents in the U.S. -- though it has done some work overseas -- and on dreaming up new inventions in-house with its own group of experts. It has bought thousands of patents but only 26 of its own inventions have been approved so far, according to a spokeswoman. The original patents cover areas such as digital imaging, medical devices and solid-state physics.

The firm had licensing revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars last year, one person familiar with the matter said.

The Intellectual Ventures model has made some people nervous, especially the massing of a large patent portfolio that could be used in litigation (as the Journal article and a piece I posted last year relate). But Myhrvold says he is trying to help inventors and to create a more liquid market for intellectual property. If they do that, then they will be moving the innovation process along. If they end up simply suing everyone and blocking innovation, then they are a problem. Right now, the evidence seems to be on the former.

So, for now - more power to them.