Innovator or troll, Intellectual Ventures remains a mystery

Intellectual Ventures paints itself a champion of innovation and a liberator of inventors. More and more detractors consider the patent private equity firm steered by polymath Nathan Myhrvold a giant patent troll. Not long ago, Intellectual Ventures was being viewed as something different, something curious and in between, an oasis where inventors get paid and inventions are equity. A magical place where labs, lawyers and licenses form a collective and share in the riches of something called ...