Intellectual Ventures co-founder Peter Detkin announced today that he will be stepping down as the company’s Vice Chairman on January 1. In an interview with IAM, Detkin said that he plans to devote up to half his time continuing to work on the Bellevue-based patent holding company, and will remain involved in major deals, policy advocacy and other key issues.
Detkin denied that his stepping back from day-to-day operations was a result of tensions within the company and said that he chose to leave because Intellectual Ventures’s latest patent buying fund was fully funded and now was a good time to do so.
He isn’t the only high-profile employee to leave Intellectual Ventures this year. Andy Elder, the company’s former top licensing executive, left in April.
The news comes at the end of a long, hard year for IV.
The company had trouble raising funds for its latest round of buying patents, after a number of companies like Apple and Google that participated in past rounds chose to stay away from this year’s offering. In addition, IV underwent two rounds of layoffs this year, cutting its workforce by five percent in February, and then by another 140 employees in August.
