After collaborating with patent buying company Intellectual Ventures to purchase Kodak patents in 2012, Apple is now rebuffing offers by IV to invest in is latest patent acquisition fund, reports Reuters. Though both Apple and Intel have declined to participate, rivals Microsoft and Sony have been persuaded to contribute to a new round of patent buying.
Intellectual Ventures is one of the top five patent owners in the U.S. and has a portfolio of over 70,000 patents and intellectual property assets. The company has raised $6 billion for patents and is courting investors like Apple to raise an additional $3 billion."Microsoft and Sony's investments give IV a fresh war chest to buy new patents," said Kevin Jakel, chief executive of Unified Patents, which advises tech companies on alternatives to patent aggregators like IV.
"The companies that are not investing in the fund have probably just found better uses for their money," Landers said."Amy Landers, an intellectual property professor at University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, said Apple and Intel's decision on IV's latest fund was probably unrelated to the political debate on patent reform.
Apple recently joined the new Partnership for American Innovation, a patent reform lobbying group that includes DuPont, Ford, General Electric, IBM, Microsoft and Pfizer. The group is opposing recent patent reform legislation that they claim may hurt actual innovations that need patent protection.
Article Link: Apple Declines to Invest in Intellectual Ventures' Patent Buying Fund