Intellectual Ventures ramps up lobbying in face of new legislation (opens in new tab)

Do they actually work on really cool stuff though? As far as I can tell, they think up something that could possibly exist and patent it without actually making it, or if they do make it, they only do it halfway (aka not doing the actual difficult parts).

That's the problem indeed. With great intellect and ability comes great responsibility and these very smart guys (hence the lab) have only he intellects, not the depth of intelligence to realise that their own individual corner is not all that matters in the bigger game. They're the tagger that ruins Banksy's artworks, the despot who sends out the first nuke...

You have bought into their marketing. Their main business is not inventing cool stuff: that's just a hobby that looks good. It represents a small fraction of the money.

A donation to the EFF might cheer you up :)

can you get back within range?

Paying a lobbying firm to push a particular policy is quite different than bribing a public official. Lobbying isn't, by and large, an act of "hey here's a $50 why don't you look the other way." It's: "hey, your staff doesn't have time to write a bill so here's some proposed text." Or: "hey, here is this study we commissioned showing that global warming is a sham, so you have something to throw back at people who claim you're being unscientific."

Lobbying involves a ton of leg-work and that's not free.

More like Intellectual Vultures.