Intellectual Ventures… let’s see what happens

Back in December last year I ran into the Australian team that is running a patent acquisition company based in the states called Intellectual Ventures. They buy patents and inventions and put them into portfolios for licensing to large companies giving the inventor a stipend of the royalty stream.

While I would probably not use this model for any of my major projects it certainly sounds interesting so this month I’ve decided to run some ideas past them and see what strikes their fancy.  They have a list of areas that they are actively buying solutions for and out of those I chose the area of Grey Water utilization and water conservation.

I submitted two ideas to them and it will be interesting to see if either of them strike a chord. There is certainly a place for this business model as there are really prolific minds out there who can solve problems quickly but don’t have the resources or skills to turn them into businesses… maybe this is a way to go.