i.p. the new app

so a company's finally been created that deals exclusively with ideas. it buys, sells and as some people have suggested, steals em'...

it doesn't actually make anything: it outsources, offshores and offloads nearly every task performed by regular corporations. It has no factories, machine shops or marketing teams. Only patent attorneys populate the quiet hallways. The five-year-old firm's plan is to create or buy new ideas, accumulate patents—exclusive rights to use the inventions—and rent those ideas to companies that need them to do the gritty work of producing real products.

the company's raised $350 million from some of the largest companies in high tech: Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia and Apple. Google and eBay also recently invested. what this means for business is unclear - but if companies can own the very inkling of a potential application or product, small businesses will find it even harder to break into the market.