"Ballad of the Patent Troll" - video criticising the likes of Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's patent troll

New examples of patent trolls and patent boosters (possibly even lobbyists) putting a form of patent tax on the de facto universal platform which is free Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures, which is funded and made with Microsoft’s investments (Myhrvold is Microsoft’s former CTO), is expanding the pyramid scheme by signing a patent deal with HTC. The Register says:

"Highly confidential" memo from Microsoft's current patent troll shows Microsoft worrying about "Linux" even over a decade ago

Who says that Microsoft and free software developers are enemies?

A former Microsoft executive, who became a patent troll, is being backed by his old boss

Correspondence between Jim Gray (now deceased) and Nathan Myhrvold (now the world's biggest patent troll) reveals Microsoft's reasons for disdain for GNU/Linux in 1998

OIN scoops up Microsoft patents that were put up for grabs (potentially by patent trolls); similarity to Intellectual Ventures seen

Nathan Myhrvold, chief of Intellectual Ventures, says patent holders are being treated unfairly.

Bill Gates' Searete is looking to make money from natural disasters. IT HAS been a long time since we last wrote about Searete, which is Bill Gates'; very own patent-trolling firm [1, 2, 3]. As the Gates-backed Intellectual Ventures demonstrates, these sleeping giant trolls sooner or later go offensive and proceed to extortion.