Intellectual Ventures

Nuro dreams of autonomous lattes, what is a metamaterial, Volvo takes the wheel

Welcome back to the TechCrunch transportation newsletter; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. We love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of

Gates-backed Lumotive upends lidar conventions using metamaterials

Pretty much every self-driving car on the road, not to mention many a robot and drone, uses lidar to sense its surroundings. But useful as lidar is, it also involves physical compromises that limit it

EarthNow promises real-time views of the whole planet from a new satellite constellation

A new space imaging startup called EarthNow aims to provide not just pictures of the planet on demand, but real-time video anywhere a client desires. Its ambition is matched only by its pedigree: Bill

Home decorating gets a new AR toolkit thanks to Intellectual Ventures’ new incubator

Taking another step toward shedding its reputation as the tech industry's most notorious patent troll, Intellectual Ventures is launching the first company from its incubator. The company's ISF Incuba

Echodyne’s pocket-sized radar may be the next must-have tech for drones (and drone hunters)

Just because we live in an age of many sensors doesn't mean we always have the right one for the job. One in particular we've been lacking is a radar system that can detect obstacles and aircraft hund

Nest Buys Protection: Licenses Patents From Intellectual Ventures To Fight Honeywell, Others

This morning, intelligent thermostat company Nest struck a patent licensing deal with notorious patent hoarder Intellectual Ventures. There are a variety of reasons for the deal but the primary purpos

Nathan Myhrvold, ex-MSFT CTO And Patent Powerbroker, Gobbles Up A Major Cookbook Award

Nathan Myhrvold, erstwhile Microsoft CTO and now patent powerbroker extraordinare, has hit the news this weekend, but it's not for his latest licensing deal with a <a href="http://www.intellectualven

Troll The Troll

Never troll a troll, say men and women much wiser than moi. To them, I say no, in this case it's perfectly fine to <a href="http://www.trollthetroll.com/">troll the troll</a>. From the <a href=

Patents and Unions: When Good Intentions Go Horribly Wrong

Watch me ruin your Sunday afternoon with one word. Ready? Here we go. <strong>Patents.</strong> This week on <a href="http://pressheretv.com/?p=1840">NBC's Press:Here</a> we talked about this to

Google On The Nortel Loss, Patents As Government-Granted Monopolies, And Plates Of Spaghetti

Back in early April, Kent Walker, Google's Senior Vice President & General Counsel, wrote a post on the Google blog titled "<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/patents-and-innovation.

Intellectual Ventures Sues A Slew Of Firms, Including HP And Dell, Over Patent Infringement

<a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/intellectual-ventures">Intellectual Ventures</a> is (again) <a href="http://news.priorsmart.com/intellectual-ventures-v-hynix-semiconductor-l4cv/">suing</a>

Patent Trolling Doesn't Pay: Intellectual Ventures Shows A Negative 73 Percent Return

<img src="http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/cdixon-patnet-troll-tweet.jpg"> You can always count on Hunch founder Chris Dixon for interesting Tweets.  He just sent out this <a href="ht

Is RPX's "Defensive Patent Aggregation" Simply Patent Extortion By Another Name?

<img src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/rpx-logo.png" /> Patent litigation is getting so bad that a new startup, <a href="http://www.rpxcorp.com/index.html">RPX Corp.</a> (aka, Ra

Nathan Myhrvold's Patent Extortion Fund Is Reaping Hundreds Of Millions of Dollars

<img src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/head-neurons-graphic-patents.png" alt="" title="head-neurons-graphic-patents" />Don't blame Nathan Myhrvold for taking advantage of the cult