"In the course of doing so, Phelps portrays Microsoft as desperately striving to adapt to a new world of aggressive enforcement of intellectual property (IP), but ends up suggesting a rising IP hegemon eager to shape a new world of such enforcement.
"It's not pretty.
"Phelps is the man who turned IBM's patent portfolio into a $2 billion business (as he reminds the reader several times), but his goal at Microsoft wasn't to generate cash through licensing, he declares. Nor is Microsoft's new IP strategy a rehash of the old world where IP is treated as a negative right (i.e., the ability to protect one's IP from the wiles and avarice of competitors), but rather IP becomes "a bridge to collaboration with other firms."
