>it is absolutely the case that every Intellectual Ventures, Lodsys, and Rockstar thinks of themselves as being innovative inventors like Lonnie Johnson.
How sure are you about that? If they acquire patents, how could they possibly believe that?
Intellectual Ventures actually does create the patents. We think they're for obvious, trivial ideas, but they definitely create them. (I guess they don't actually sue other companies directly, either.)
My understanding was that it's likely that some of the people who work at Rockstar are the inventors of some of the held patents. Maybe not the key patents, but it's a company holding a lot of patents and employing a bunch of engineers, there's almost certainly some overlap.
I agree that the transfer of ownership of patents is a potential aspect of a dividing line, that seems to be a common theme. But it seems like it wouldn't be too difficult for a patent troll to skirt this by "employing" an inventor, or somehow wedging the name of one of their employees into the inventors list for every patent.
Intellectual Ventures actually does create the patents
Intellectual Ventures do create some patents, but they also buy a lot of patents. Most, if not all, of the cases that have hit the news involved patents Intellectual Ventures bought.
Perhaps not as inventors directly, but they could certainly believe the patents they are buying are innovative. (That's why they bought them! (supposedly))
In an abstract sense, patent aggregators (to coin a term) are not inherently bad. A small inventor faces a number of obstacles and risks marketing and protecting a patent (see linked story). Selling the patent to a middleman guarantees cash today. For many people, $1 million today is better than $10 million in ten years. That said, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
How sure are you about that? If they acquire patents, how could they possibly believe that?