I haven’t seen much from the charitable angle (they seem to be set up as a for-profit corporation), but some googling indicates that Intellectual Ventures has a remarkably bad reputation as a patent troll.
Their business model seems. . . complicated. Like, I think they maybe do some genuinely good work, but mixed with some pretty terrible corporate behaviour. I don’t see anything wrong, so far, with the laser fence. But I can see how the company’s overall reputation could color a person’s view
