It's widely believed that Lodsys is somehow affiliated with Intellectual Ventures, but US corporate law makes it hard to really know who owns or benefits from Lodsys' lawsuits. Intellectual Ventures is known to participate in a lot of shell corporations and intellectual property trades. EFF notes that Intellectual Ventures used to own some of the patents Lodsys is prosecuting: https://www.eff.org/issues/faqs-lodsys-targets
> US corporate law makes it hard to really know who owns or benefits from Lodsys' lawsuits
As the director of a UK company every time I here this I am simply flabbergasted. In the UK all limited companies/partnerships accounts are a matter of public record.
Edit: here is a story about the Guardian trying to get Intellectual Ventures go on the record about its relationship to Lodsys. (Spoiler: they couldn't.) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jul/27/intellectu... . And here is Myhrvold saying that Intellectual Ventures sold the patent to Lodsys, although he carefully avoids saying anything about ongoing business terms between his company and Lodsys. http://features.slashdot.org/story/13/04/02/1926255/nathan-m...