Controversial patent celebrity working at IBM

Kevin Rivette is sort of the O.J. Simpson of the patent world. You either like him or think he's up to something slinky. Many large companies and others like to blame him at least partly for a rise in patent litigation and claims over the past several years.

Inventors and many patent owners, however, claim that the 1999 book Rembrandts in the Attic: Uncovering the Hidden Value of Patents co-authored by Rivette and David Kline encouraged them to take an inventory of their patent portfolio and seek more royalties.

Rivette, a former consultant with Boston Consulting, is now serving as vice president of IP strategy at IBM. We spoke to him briefly at a dinner hosted by Ocean Tomo the night before that firm's patent auction.

IBM in a lot of ways reflects the complex loyalties in the current patent controversies. The company will occasionally complain about how intellectual property litigation can hurt businesses. IBM even gives away patents to the open source community.

At the same time, IBM aggressively licenses its patents, pulling in over a billion a year in royalties. (Marshall Phelps, the exec who helped IBM fine tune its licensing strategy, now works for Microsoft) It also tops all other companies in the number of patents awarded by the U.S. Patent Office each year.