When Patents Attack

The podcast, “When Patents Attack” is about the patent process in the United States and why the program was initially developed. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution authorizes the federal government to allow patents on inventions in order to inspire scientific and technical progress. The US Patent and Trademark Office defines a patent as "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale or selling" a patented item. If anybody uses your idea you get paid, a patent makes it safe to share and innovate. However there are patent trolls out there. A patent troll is when companies don’t make any products, but go around suing other companies that do make products over supposed patent infringement. After listening to the podcast I think patent trolls slow innovation, make it harder for companies to grow, and hurt global competitiveness because of the fear of being sued.

The podcast mentions Nathan Myhrvold and the company Intellectual Ventures. Peter Detkin states that the mission of Intellectual Ventures “is to help inventors bring great ideas into the world. That lot’s of inventors, they’re like great artists, brilliant but not brilliant at business. So their patents languish. IV gets their ideas into the hands of companies who’ll actually build what they’ve invented.” It’s ironic that Peter Detkin the guy who created the term patent troll is now a founder and vice chairman of Intellectual Ventures, because from what was in the interview it seems like Intellectual Ventures is a lot like a patent troll. The company’s website presents itself as being all about investing in innovation. In my opinion Intellectual Ventures is not what it appears to be. From the podcast they seem very hesitant answering questions as if trying to cover up or hide something. For example, with the Chris Crawford patent being sold to Oasis there