Nathan Myhrvold and his somewhat mysterious company Intellectual Ventures have gotten plenty of attention lately, both in Corporate Dealmaker and BusinessWeek, where Myhrvold was the subject of the July 3 cover story. While the debate is raging in the IP corridors as to whether Nathan is a sinner (“he¹s nothing but a deep pocketed troll!”) or a saint (“he's the Edison of our age, and has the interest of the true inventor at heart!”), there is little debate that he will have an impact. I must admit, simply seeing intellectual property featured on the cover of the most prominent national business weekly gave me a bit of a rush — after all, we live in a country where Congress seems incapable of being able to debate even the fundamental issues around patent reform while they debate such vital measures as an amendment to ban flag burning or banning gay marriage. And as my wife often tells me, I am in a very SMALL minority of Americans who actually get excited about IP. Both writers, Lisa Lerner in CD and Michael Orey in BW, describe how Myhrvold is indeed out to change the world, and certainly views himself as the saint in this debate. We’ll see. What he is trying to do is unproven, highly risky, and hard to monetize — but of course that’s what the “experts” said about the first venture capitalists 40 or 50 years ago. On the other hand, while Myhrvold is certainly a very smart guy and used his Microsoft stint to develop a name for himself, his track record of true innovation is a bit thin. There were many online postings to the BW article — my favorite was from someone who goes by the handle IrishWarrior and said: “If Myhrvold is as successful with this venture as he was at fostering 'innovation' at Microsoft, I don't think there's a whole lot to be concerned about.” Touche. — Jim Huston

Jim Huston is a Managing Director with Blueprint Ventures, an early stage technology venture capital firm which specializes in helping corporations monetize their IP via early stage corporate IP spinouts.

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