An Intellectual Property-gathering outfit founded by ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold has thrown a patent infringement sueball at nine tech companies.

Intellectual Ventures filed a lawsuit against three semiconductor vendors - Altera Corp, Microsemi Corp and Lattice Semiconductor Corp - in the US District Court of Delaware.

Separately it brought a suit against DRAM and Flash makers Elpida Memory Inc, which is based in Tokyo, Japan, and South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

Myhrvold's firm also sued a number of high-profile anti-virus software companies in yet another suit that fingered Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, Trend Micro Inc, Symantec Corp and McAfee Inc.

“Over the years, Intellectual Ventures has successfully negotiated licence agreements with some of the top technology companies in the world. However, some companies have chosen to ignore our requests for good faith negotiations and discussions,” said the outfit's top litigation counsel Melissa Finocchio.

“Protecting our invention rights through these actions is the right choice for our investors, inventors and current licensees,” she said.

It's understood that Intellectual Ventures has a patent portfolio that could include as many as 30,000 to 50,000 patents squirreled away in around 1,100 shell companies. Which in some quarters makes Myhrvold's company a patent troll.

This way for details of the lawsuits from the mouth of the self-styled "invention company". ®

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