Like father, like son (Microsoft’s patent progeny)

I was talking with a friend this morning, and he brought up a funny connection. Microsoft now holds the distinction of World’s Biggest Patent Troll, but just a few weeks ago that distinction may have gone to former Microsoft CTO, Nathan Myhrvold, founder of Intellectual Ventures.

They reportedly have raised over $1 billion from many large companies including Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google and eBay. Estimates range between 1,000 and 5,000 purchased patents and hundreds of original inventions. Investors gain protection from being sued over these patents, but the Intellectual Ventures intends to impose royalties on other companies.

Apparently, as my friend suggested, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe Gates, when he finally leaves, can set up a patent troll system of his own.

Except that he already sort of does. It’s called Corbis, and owns the rights (along with Getty Images) to much of what you see (online, in print, in corporate brochures, etc.). As Gates told BusinessWeek:

Corbis has a special role with imagery and video to have a library that covers the world, both the history and the subject matter, and has it available in several different rights models. When you’re trying to do a marketing campaign, Corbis is there to help out. Also, we’re there with the rights clearance, some of the services around it, and also some of the software that makes it easy to find out exactly what you want.

Perhaps they don’t teach software design classes at Microsoft. Perhaps they just teach Copyright and Patent Law. I went to law school. Maybe I should have gone to Microsoft Law School.