Could it be just a coincidence that IV is run by a former Microsoft executive? I'm thinking it isn't. This way Microsoft stays "clean", and Google/Motorola can't sue IV back or threaten them with their patents since it's not even a real company.
You don't have to have a deliberate "conspiracy" (a word that often seems used to dismiss reasonable explanations of events) to have people with power using their influence to get other people with power to do things for their benefit (like file proxy lawsuits a la SCO). Their past behavior is in line with nextparadigms's comment.
"Intellectual Ventures was founded in 2000 by Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung of Microsoft as a private partnership. It lists Peter Detkin of Intel, and Gregory Gorder of Perkins Coie, a Seattle-based law firm as co-founders. They reportedly have raised over $5 billion from many large companies including Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, SAP, Nvidia and eBay, plus investment firms such as Charles River Ventures. Reported statistics indicate over 30,000 purchased patents and applications[3] and over 2000 internally-developed inventions. Licenses to patents are obtained through investment and royalties.[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures#Reference...
You're as sound in your logic as saying that because IV was founded by the author of Modernist Cuisine, it's obvious that the molecular gastronomy movement is responsible for Google's patent troubles.
http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=49803802...
Intellectual Ventures has no loyalty to anything but its own inventions.
edit: incidentally, the outcome of Microsoft v. i4i (and the parent lawsuit, i4i v. Microsoft) was an out-of-court settlement where Microsoft paid i4i $300 million, at the hazard of an injunction against selling Office in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4i
Disclaimer: I am employed by MS, in an unrelated area.