In 2001, former Microsoft physicist Nathan Myhrvold envisioned the possibility of a marketplace for invention, so he created the Bellevue-based multifaceted company Intellectual Ventures. The group has created groundbreaking technology in nuclear energy, communications, and global health. The Invention Science Fund incubator matches “hungry” CEOs with in-house inventions, work space, and funding to break out as new companies. Another arm of the company focuses on investing and licensing for patents. And the third aspect of the company, Global Good, is in partnership with Bill Gates and uses artificial intelligence to battle malaria and cervical cancer among the poorest populations in the world.
Photos by Rachel Coward
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- T-Rex: Just off the elevator to the executive suites lives a life-sized T-Rex model used in the movie Jurassic Park.
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- Machine Shop: Inventing means bringing thoughts into physical form. Intellectual Ventures does that in the machine and precision instrument shop. If Intellectual Ventures doesn’t have a tool, they will make it. The IV Lab is equipped to prototype almost any invention. It has three of the most advanced 3-D printers, two 5-axis milling machines, and an electrical discharge machine that cuts through steel within .004 of an inch.
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- Plasma Chamber: Some of the world’s top materials scientists use these plasma chambers for groundbreaking research in Intellectual Ventures’ metamaterials lab.
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- Archimedes Boardroom: This is not just any boardroom. This is where all the magic happens — where Intellectual Ventures conducts its famed “invention sessions.”
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- IV Lab Entrance: The ceiling of the IV Lab entrance boasts a Lab-built, more-than-30-foot-long art piece depicting Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion, translated from their original Latin to binary code.
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- Rocket Engine: Yes, Intellectual Ventures has a rocket engine, too. This Rocketdyne liquid fuel rocket engine was used by NASA’s Saturn I launch vehicles — a precursor to the Saturn V that took men to the moon in the Apollo program.
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- Mechanical Engineering Room: Intellectual Ventures’ inventors study a range of problems, such as respiratory mechanics and thermal control, and build things like oxygen concentrators. This means employees look at things like how heat spreads, how gases flow, and how to design a structure that can withstand extreme temperatures.
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- Nathan’s Library: CEO Myhrvold’s library is a trove of wooden puzzles, a fossilized bed of prehistoric shells, and of course hundreds of books personally earmarked with notes by Myhrvold himself.
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- Patent Portfolio: Intellectual Ventures has created a portfolio of 30,000 intellectual property assets in programs that span 50 technology areas.
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- Typewriters: The company’s guests are greeted in the lobby with Myhrvold’s collection of typing machines that span the late 19th and 20th centuries.
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- Chemical Hood: Intellectual Ventures’ inventions solve big problems in low-resource countries and developed world markets by applying cutting-edge science. IV’s innovators invent breakthrough technologies in the areas of metamaterials, biomedical technologies, energy, communications, the Internet of Things, and more.
