It never fails. Whenever more and more people start discussing what a downright dangerous company Intellectual Ventures is, and how its massive trolling operations are a huge hindrance to actual innovation, IV's PR people invite some journalists to "take a tour" of the part of the building where they have people "inventing" stuff, hoping they'll talk about what a miraculous special company IV is. It happened two years ago with Gizmodo, and this year, they had News.com take a tour. Thankfully, unlike the piece a couple years ago, News.com doesn't ignore the elephant in the room, and makes sure to point out much of the criticism surrounding Intellectual Ventures. However, it also lets claims like this one slide:

"We think of the problem we want to solve," says Tim Londergan, Intellectual Ventures' senior director of investment strategy. "[We] find great inventions and get them to market."

Um. And how many of them have they been able to "get to market"? The answer is exactly zero over twelve years. Despite $5 billion in investment money (using something of a pyramid scheme to get companies to pay up early to get some upside) and 70,000 "intellectual assets" (many of which were bought at fire sale prices from university tech transfer offices who were desperate to prove that tech transfer offices work, and who needed to get them off the books). A grand total of two companies have spun off, but neither has anything on the market, nor will they for many years. There's something to be said for not rushing ideas, but $5 billion and twelve years... if you're really looking for problems you want to solve and bringing the solutions to market, you'd expect a slightly higher hit rate.

Of course, given that investors in IV are also beginning to realize that their returns suck, you have to worry that IV is only going to ramp up the one part of its business that actually does make money: either shaking companies down by claiming they violate broad patents, or selling off patents to smaller shell firms that will do the same thing for them.

For all of Nathan Myhrvold's ridiculous talk of doing God's work, the company can't try to hide the fact that it's become a giant tax on companies who actually innovate, by hiring some scientists to do crazy experiments in fancy offices, none of which seem to have any likelihood of being useful. Innovation is about bringing products to market. Trolling is about forcing actual innovators to pay up for succeeding. IV has never been about innovation and is focused almost entirely on trolling. Having some scientists working on dopey projects that look good for the press doesn't change any of that.

For many years we've questioned the wisdom of various "distracted driving" laws -- such as bans on talking while driving or texting while driving. It's not -- as some people have accused -- that we think texting or using a mobile phone is a good idea while driving. We don't. In fact, it seems to go without saying that trying to send a text message while driving is one of the dumbest things you can do, and I'm amazed that anyone even considers it. My concern has always been that I don't believe the laws work. And, now, it appears that we have some more evidence to support that. A new study has shown that state laws banning driving while texting have not reduced accidents, and in some cases may have even resulted in more accidents. How could it have increased accidents? Because people who want to text anyway -- especially unskilled young drivers -- begin holding their phones lower to avoid detection, making it that much more difficult to control the car and be aware of their surroundings. The study compared before and after stats in states that implemented texting-while-driving bans, and then also compared the findings to neighboring states that didn't have such laws.

This seems like a classic case of politicians not understanding unintended consequences. Politicians love to ban stuff, but they never take into account the actual response to those bans, and just assume that if the law bans something people will stop doing it. Instead, they may continue to do the action in an even less socially acceptable way -- and that can put a lot more people in danger.

The article quotes someone who makes the point that I've been trying to make for years:

"The trouble is that texting and using a cellphone while driving is definitely hazardous. Nobody argues that. The danger in putting all the emphasis on laws is that it is being done to the exclusion of something else that would be more effective."

No one is arguing that texting while driving is a good thing -- just that these laws aren't helping (and may even be making the problem worse). Instead of pretending we live in a perfect world where if something is banned by law, people will stop doing it, why not focus on looking for solutions that actually make people safer?

We've been suspicious of whether or not "driving while yakking" laws actually do any good. There are already laws against reckless driving, and picking out specific driving distractions doesn't seem likely to change things, since people just switch to other distractions. A study back in 2006 found that driving while yakking laws don't make the roads any safer, and a brand new study has apparently surprised researchers in showing no impact whatsoever on crash data even as studies show that fewer people are holding phones to their ears while driving (thanks Chirag). Now, there could be plenty of reasons for this -- such as that people are just switching to ear pieces which can be just as dangerous. Or it could be that common claims about driving while yakking leading to more accidents are wrong. Or it could be more complex, with other variables having an impact, but which is hidden in the data. Either way, it certainly seems worth investigating more seriously. If the goal is better road safety, then we should make sure that the laws actually lead to that result. If they don't, then it's important to understand why not.