Intel

RealNetworks, the company behind Real Player, recently agreed to sell about 190 patents and 170 pending patent applications to Intel Corp for $120 million. Intel announced it was getting “foundational media patents” in this acquisition, but should it have had a “real” look into the portfolio that it is acquiring before it agreed to purchase?

Intellectual Ventures’ investors hold prior art and precedent innovation which, if disclosed, could vastly alter the enforceability of patents asserted in the DRAM industry. We wonder whether their IP holdings or their equity in IV matters more.

In August of 2010, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, initiated a lawsuit against 11 tech companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, YouTube, eBay, Netflix, OfficeMax, Office Depot, and Staples, alleging that they were in violation of patents granted to Interval Research in the 1990's while he was in a management role at that entity.