In 2000, Nathan Melward, former chief technology officer of Microsoft (Nathan)
Myhrvold) founded IntellectualVentures, whose initial funding source was provided by many technology companies including Google. Today, the company claims to own 70,000 patents, with authorized revenue of $3 billion, and claims that $500 million has been returned to the inventors.
In the whole scientific and technological field, famous big companies such as Samsung, Apple and Microsoft have purchased the patent authorization of IntellectualVentures, and even smaller startups such as Nest, a manufacturer of intelligent thermostats, have not been spared.