Rocket Docket Of East Texas Not Fast Enough For Lawsuit Against The Troll Tracker?

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Joe Mullin has all the latest details on the ongoing defamation lawsuit filed by some East Texas lawyers against Rick Frenkel (better known as the Patent Troll Tracker) and his employer Cisco. We covered the original lawsuit earlier this year, but things are getting more complicated. There are some arguments going on over the appropriate venue as well as some questions about legal fees. It seems that one of the lawyers has dropped the case against Frenkel directly to focus just on Cisco, and Frenkel would like his legal fees paid. The suing lawyer disagrees, suggesting that it was a gentlemanly move to drop Frenkel from the case in the first place.

However, perhaps the most amusing part of all of this is that the guy is trying his darndest to keep the lawsuit out of the East Texas district using the argument that the district is too slow because it's all filled up with pending lawsuits -- such as all the patent lawsuits being filed in the so-called "rocket docket." Just recently, a patent attorney who hangs out in the comments here insisted that (despite statistics showing that East Texas sided with patent holders at a much higher rate than in other districts) the real reason patent holders filed there was because of the speed with which it took care of cases. Funny how one of the patent attorneys who promotes that view is suddenly worried about just how slow those courts are.
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Filed Under: east texas, legal fees, patents, rocket docket, troll tracker


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  1. identicon
    Wolfy, 29 May 2008 @ 4:03am

    It bites when the shoe's on the other foot!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    John Thomas, 29 May 2008 @ 5:49am

    Attorneys

    Boy ya just gotta love those bottom feeding attorneys now don't you. Anything to make a buck.

    JT
    http://www.PRivacy-Center.net

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    angry dude, 29 May 2008 @ 6:37am

    Gotta love the shit

    While the real american inventors with valid US patents are treated like shit in this country the great deal of money and effort is being wasted in courts

    Wanna patent reform ?

    Then stop willful patent infringement !

    Criminalize it if necessary

    Then we wouldn't have the shitty "troll tracker" blog - all Cisco execs including Frenkel would be wearing stripes already

    MOney is just shit for those corporate assholes - they'll pass their damages to consumers anyway
    Prison term is something to think about

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2008 @ 6:47am

    Re: Gotta love the shit

    AD -> "Criminalize it if necessary"

    Oh yeah, that's gonna work out just swell.
    Not to change the subject - but for example - Copyright infringement, which used to be a civil matter, can now be a criminal offense and look at what has happened as a direct result. You like the idea of customes being turned into capt. copyright ?

    Heh - gentleman and lawyer in the same sentence.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    DanC, 29 May 2008 @ 7:03am

    Re: Gotta love the shit

    While the real american inventors with valid US patents

    In other words, any inventor not working for a big, evil corporation.

    the great deal of money and effort is being wasted in courts

    And some of that wasted time and money is a direct result of the small independent inventors trying to enforce patents that should never have been granted in the first place, like the infamouse JPEG Patent (all original claims rejected) or the recently discussed Hyperlinked Images Patent (method already in practice when patent was filed). Attempting to place all the blame on corporations is simply dishonest.

    Then stop willful patent infringement !

    In angry dude's reality of course, any infringement by a corporation is automatically willful, because they're evil and stuff.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2008 @ 7:20am

    Re: Gotta love the shit

    Damn, I thought you died.

    Quick! A bus is passing by FIX IT

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Heywood Jablowme, 29 May 2008 @ 7:29am

    Re: Attorneys

    Anything to make a buck.

    And you say that as you add a link to a pay service to your post. Shameless.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    angry dude, 29 May 2008 @ 8:18am

    Re: Re: Gotta love the shit

    Just shut up little punk

    You don't have a f****** clue about the real world

    There is a big movie coming out in October "Flash of genious"

    This is about how your beloved korporations treat creative individuals

    it's a norm, not an exception

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    DanC, 29 May 2008 @ 8:49am

    Re: Re: Re: Gotta love the shit

    This is about how your beloved korporations treat creative individuals

    We've discussed this before. According to you, all corporations are evil, they all infringe on the valid patents of poor independent inventors, whose only possible recourse is to litigate. You routinely ignore or dismiss the fact that there are small independent inventors that file lawsuits over patents that aren't valid.

    Nobody is saying that there aren't corporations that have taken advantage of inventors, but your insistence on absolutes makes your arguments weak and unsupportable.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    angry dude, 29 May 2008 @ 9:33am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta love the shit

    I suggest renting the documentary "The Corporation" to educate yourself a little better

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    DanC, 29 May 2008 @ 10:18am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta love the shit

    I would suppose that this documentary highlights the abuses of some corporations, which I already acknowledged does happen.

    Again, you continue to argue with absolutes. Not every corporation is the big, evil entity seeking to crush humanity, and not every independent inventor is the upright virtuous citizen struggling against "the man".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Casual Viewer, 29 May 2008 @ 4:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta love the shit

    I have to give the nod to DanC on this one. I too beleive that corporations can be very evil and mess with the little guy. However, you can't say every corporation EVER is evil and the little guy is always right, either! AD's argument is unsupportable. He is a communist who doesnt realize that a corporation is just another commune, but only for the investors.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    JL, 29 May 2008 @ 5:16pm

    And the "Little Guy" is???

    Um, usually NOT the little guy?

    I'd love a list of how many legitimate (meaning, Patent Office has reviewed AGAIN, and still granted) patents owned by "little guy" patent holders are really in litigation.

    VS.

    Questionable patents, held by a patent holding company, not doing anything for the "useful" progress of society that copy right and patents are supposed to be doing, but simply using them to sue as many other possible pockets as they can.

    Tell you what, clear out all the bul**hit patent attorney/patent holding company cases on the docket and see how many REAL "little guys" are behind the masks and front companies.

    I'll bet it's not many.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    angry dude, 29 May 2008 @ 9:49pm

    Re: And the "Little Guy" is???

    Just shut up and listen
    You don't have a clue
    Practically all independent inventors (including myself) have some kind of company, real company or just a patent holding shell
    Usually it's LLC
    It limits your liability and protects you from claims from your past, present and future employers (if you have to keep outside regular employment)
    It also allows sharing owneship of patents with prospective investors, whether they want to invest in bulding actual products or just in patent litigation
    It's just normal business practice dude, forming as many shells as needed
    Everybody does it - big corporations and little guys alike
    There is nothing wrong with it
    Check the Delaware corporate register - you'll be amazed

    link to this | view in thread ]


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