More Lawyers Want To Get The Troll Tracker In Court
from the shutting-up-a-valuable-voice dept
Last month, we noted that Rick Frenkel, who for months had been the anonymous "Troll Tracker," was being sued for defamation for some of the posts on his blog. Now, it appears that another set of patent attorneys that Frenkel wrote about are trying to get him into court. This concerned the rather infamous case of a patent attorney at a large law firm who got his own patents, and then used them to sue companies who were clients of his own firm for patent infringement. The lawyer in question, Scott Harris, is represented by Niro Scavone, who was another target of Frenkel and whose named partner not only proudly claims that the term "patent troll" was based on him, but also put out a bounty to anyone who could identify the Troll Tracker.So why is Frenkel being dragged into the Harris case? Apparently Harris and his lawyers are trying to build a big conspiracy theory around Frenkel. Because Frenkel worked at Cisco, and Harris' former employer (Fish & Richardson) did work for Cisco, Frenkel's blog posts really were just a big plot to help out Fish & Richardson while devaluing Harris' patents. That sounds pretty far-fetched by any stretch of the imagination, and would require an awful lot of proof. But, what's most likely really happening is that the folks that Frenkel helped shed some light on are now taking advantage of the situation to drag him into court whenever and however possible.
This is quite tragic for a variety of reasons. No matter what one thinks of Frenkel's anonymity while working for Cisco, you cannot deny that he brought to light many of the shadier tactics being used by patent hoarding firms, often hiding behind shell corporation names and suing many companies at once. Since Frenkel stopped blogging, many of those stories are remaining underground. No one has stepped into the void, unfortunately, perhaps afraid that they, too, will become targets in various lawsuits. The information that Frenkel was bringing to light (while potentially biased by his position at Cisco) did help point a light at some questionable activities that had been hidden for far too long.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: lawsuits, patents, raymond niro, rick frenkel, scott harris, troll tracker
Companies: cisco, fish & richardson
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
double or nothing
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The system needs more people like Rick who see the issues for what they are: instead of maintaining the status quo, and identify the issues for what they are.
Visibility to the real issues is how change occurs.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
poor clueless techdirt lemmings
Just give me a freaking break
Mark Chandler, Cisco's senior legal VP and Rick's boss used some of those PTT blog articles while campaining on patent "reform" down in Wash DC
Do you really believe that he didn't consult Rick on at least some of those "articles" ?
Now, Rick made a crucial mistake: being a senior corporate legal councel in charge of that partucular ongoing litigation against his corporate employer (ESN vs Cisco) he dared to post some outrageous lies about the opposing party's legal counsels, accusing them of gross misconduct (he made a statement in his blog implying that those attorneys conspired with EDT court clerk and falsified court filing dates)
"Thou shalt not steal"
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"
Amen
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: poor clueless techdirt lemmings
Whether or not other people at Cisco had some input into the blog does not change the facts with respect to Harris: either Harris bought patents and sued the clients of the firm where he was a partner or he did not. If you believe in the existence and importance of objective reality that is the issue around Harris.
If I were Cisco and I found out that a partner at my law firm was suing me for patents he had acquired for his own account I would pursue a scorched earth policy against the lawyer and the law firm. But that's just me - you might be a milder mannered and more forgiving and moderate personality.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
screw Cisco
Perhaps you should know that "scorched earth" litigation is the only policy Cisco has towards those outside inventors and smaller tech companies asserting their valid patents against Cisco
Sort of: "We respect intellectual property of others, but your patent happens to be invalid, not infinged, unenforceable and btw, we don't even want to read you farking patent"
Yep, that would be Rick and his Cisco bosses
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: screw Cisco
Now if he is a liar, that is another story. Thats got quite a hefty burden of proof, though.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
angry dude isn't constrained by pesky concepts like "proof"
Unfortunately for him, his cosmic journey through the "joys of the angry" appear to the rest of us as if he is just being an asshat.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It should be obvious to any half ass teckie that anything published on a web site can be tracked.
It should likewise be equally obvious that any action that offends any lawyer will result in a court case in a most unfavorable location.
Given these two observations and given that this is Cisco then one can only conclude that there are some really dumb people out there.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Niro deprived Frenkel of hid due process rights.
Do you think the judge is going to act? I don't.
What can we do? Write Congress and ask our representatives to impeach the judge? The judge has condoned Niro's bounty. The judge is morally guilty. The judge ought to be impeached.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Support...
Many of us owe you -- and you still have a great fandom out here.
Don't be afraid to re-blog and post for help -- financial or otherwise... you might be astounded at just how much support you would receive.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rick might forward his expose's through an anonymous friend.
Might also forward any info on the efforts to intimidate him.
Then ( Ta-Dah ) Streisand Effect!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Streisand Effect?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Troll Tracker is a brilliant guy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
One of the first things you learn in property class is that ownership gives the right to exclude. IP, in the sense of the right to exclude, doesn't seem any different than real property other than you can't physically build a fence and keep people out. In IP (sadly enough) you have to show people that they are infringing (or tresspassing if you like references to real property). I just don't see how it is okay for a company who makes a product to violate the property rights of someone who doesn't make a product.
Above is some discussion of shady dealings with a F&R lawyer -- I'm not condoning that, I'm simply posing a more academic view on the issue of "are patent trolls really that bad?"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
The problem is in assuming that tangible property and intangible property are the same. Yes, there's a right to exclude, but the reason you have a right to exclude in tangible property was because it's a rivalrous product. Someone using it limits someone else's use. As such, property rules (the right to exclude) allow for a more efficient allocation of that property.
When you're dealing with nonrivalrous goods (my uses doesn't limit your use in any way), there's no need for a more efficient allocation, because allocation is naturally as efficient as can be. Putting fake walls on it, as patents do, actually makes the market less efficient.
That's the problem with it.
You can't treat rivalrous goods and nonrivalrous goods the same way. It leads to bad economic outcomes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]