However, the real victims of poverty and disease are already finding themselves in a worse position because of previous attacks on intellectual property.

ECONOMIST: Homeward bound?

Creating a new department to engage in such an exercise would be expensive and distract us from our current efforts to find, hire, and retain the skilled security people we need as the threat rises, the methodologies of the attackers gain in sophistication, and the targets of their attacks expand to all of our intellectual property.

FORBES: An Open Letter to Senator Rockefeller

The volume of attacks against Jews has skyrocketed and the intellectual war against Israel and its Jewish supporters has grown ever more virulent.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Mainstreaming anti-Semitism

Bush's initial reactions to the Sept. 11 attacks were a rare display of political and intellectual courage.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Will the real Bush finally stand up?

Mr. McWhorter said that unlike hacking attacks that seek credit card numbers and other personal information that can be easily sold, the Chinese attacks it followed often ignored sensitive financial data to instead focus on stealing intellectual property.

WSJ: Apple Hit by Hackers Who Struck Facebook

The lore at Intellectual Ventures has it that Bill Gates asked Myhrvold to set up the company to help defend Microsoft from attacks from patent trolls.

FORBES: Patent Stalker

While hackers had financial motives in 75% of the cyber-attacks analysed for the report, in 20% of cases the perpetrators were after trade secrets or intellectual property, it stated.

BBC: State-backed data spies hunt industrial secrets