In the past year or so, Intellectual Ventures has emerged as one of the more controversial companies in the tech industry. The company is filing patents, but also buying patents from defunct companies, independent inventors and others. It has amassed a portfolio of over 3,000 patents, according to some sources--an extremely large number for a company with only a handful of employees.

Many in the IT industry worry that the patent portfolio will become a vehicle for patent suits.

Not so, said Nathan Myhrvold, founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures. Although lawsuits may result, the company primarily exists to devise inventions that can generate new markets.