Unbelievable, and rather disturbing. I never thought Gates would promote a patent troll. Either he's aware of it and ignoring it, or he's unaware and truly believes IV is a force of good.
Both possibilities send me into cyclical-wtfs.
It's just so frustrating. Inventing the Myhrvold Way means not executing, not actually bringing anything into this world -- just sitting around waiting to license people derivative ideas or sue them.
Indeed; I might extend the old saw that "Ideas are cheap" to something like "Ideas are cheap, except when Myhrvold patents them and then asks you to do the hard work."
Has anything major and good come out of IV?
They seem to actually develop ideas of their own, and prototype them, which is what real inventors do.