Is Intellectual Ventures revving up its lawsuit machine? Will we know when it does?

Today's Recorder has a story revealing that patent-holding giant Intellectual Ventures appears to be connected to a patent lawsuit recently filed in Chicago against Kodak and CDW Corp. Picture Frame Innovations, LLC v. Eastman Kodak Company et al., 09-cv-04888, N.D. Illinois. Intellectual Ventures was founded by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold (pictured at right).

The Recorder reports that patent number 7,107,605, covering a digital picture frame, was originally filed by a small software company, but ended up being asserted by a small patent-holding company, Ez4media.

Since then, the patent has been moved through a holding company affiliated with Intellectual Ventures and then into Picture Frame Innovations, a shell company owned by James Beauregard Parker. Parker's company filed suit against Kodak and CDW on August 10. TPA readers may know Parker as someone who owns other holding companies, including some—such as BarTex Research and Illinois Computer Research—that have asserted Scott Harris patents.

An earlier Ez4media lawsuit against Apple, now settled, was briefly noted by TPA in January. (See bullet point midway down that post.) Both Ez4media and Picture Frame Innovations are represented by the Niro Scavone law firm.

Ray Niro says "IV is not involved in any way, shape, or form" in the Picture Frame Innovations lawsuit, but neither he nor IV will answer the key question: whether the patent-holding company has any financial interest in the litigation.