A number of US firms will may to rely on their professional indemnity insurance policies soon, as US patent holding company Intellectual Ventures has sued nine companies for patent infringement.
Intellectual Ventures, a firm set up by the former chief technology officer at Microsoft, Nathan Myrhvold, has filed three related patent infringement lawsuits against nine firms involved in memory solutions or security chip manufacture.
The companies in question in the first lawsuit include Checkpoint Securities, Trend Micro, Symantec and McAfee, all of whom Intellectual Ventures accuse of infringing four patents related to security and anti-virus technology.
In the second suit, Lattice Semiconductor, Microsemi Corp and Altera are targeted. The companies are accused of infringement on five patents.
The final lawsuit names Elpida Memory and Hynix Semiconductor as defendants, as Intellectual Ventures claims they have infringed on 5 to 7 patents.
Intellectual Ventures operates by investing in innovative products and technologies and licencing these patents to other firms. In the legal documents filed in a Federal Court in Delaware, the company claims that those named in the lawsuits had been asked to purchase licences for the technologies they were using.