That is the charge being levied by critics against former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold’s company Intellectual Ventures. The patent-hungry firm has bought up 30,000 patents and has threatened litigation against any company that doesn't sign a licensing agreement.
 
“We are no different from any other high-tech company that has valuable intellectual property,” says Melissa Finocchio, chief litigation counsel for Intellectual Ventures.
 
Earlier this week, Intellectual Ventures filed three patent infringement suits against a total of nine companies. The patents relate to security software, standard memory and flash memory chips, and FPGA chips (used in medical imaging equipment, among other devices).
 
The companies sued include several medical device semiconductor suppliers, such as Microsemi and Altera. —Lawrence Lloyd