Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Cutting Five Percent of Workforce

Intellectual Ventures, the invention house and patent consolidator run by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, is cutting five percent of its workforce.

“We continue to refine our business and in doing so restructured the company to deliver on our commitments, including maximizing the return for our investors,” the company said in a statement to Re/code. “This restructure is a combination of head count and operational improvements.”

The company confirmed the size of the job cuts but declined to offer details on which areas were being scaled back. “We remain committed to delivering long-term returns for our investors through a variety of monetization paths,” it said in the statement.

Part of Intellectual Ventures’ strategy is to hold various invention brainstorming exercises where it brings in Bill Gates and other big thinkers, while the more controversial portion is the company’s effort to amass a huge collection of patents and then license those out to other companies.

For those who want a refresher, here’s Myhrvold talking about the company’s strategy at the D10 conference.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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