from the you-knew-that-was-coming... dept
Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous Patent Troll Tracker had
shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears that
two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who helped make Marshall, Texas
famous as a favorite for patent holders. The
details on the case suggest that this lawsuit may have been the reason that Rick Frenkel outed himself, as it was actually
filed back in November and used as a way to unmask the Troll Tracker.
The defamation claim is based on a post that Frenkel put up back in October, which we
wrote about. It involved the fact that the Texas lawyers in question had filed a patent lawsuit against Cisco in Texas, the day before the actual patent was issued (which you're not supposed to do). In response, Cisco (perhaps Frenkel himself) had quickly filed for a declaratory judgment in Connecticut. Later on, the date on the original filing in Texas was changed, a fact that Frenkel found quite questionable. No matter what, that case was eventually dismissed entirely -- but the lawyers in question are still suing both him and Cisco for defamation. Cisco, I'd imagine, isn't thrilled about the whole situation, but one would hope execs there are reasonable enough not to punish Frenkel for this. It would be great if lawyers could weigh in on the defamation claim. The links above have most of the text being used in the defamation claim, and I'm struggling to figure out what's actually defamatory about it. There doesn't seem to be anything that would count as defamation at all. Even if there is some defamation in there somewhere, it's also difficult to see how Cisco could be found responsible for the speech. Even though Frenkel worked at Cisco, he clearly did not post the story as a representative of Cisco, and was quite careful to point to other sources that had reported the news first (i.e., not using internal Cisco info). Anyone know if Texas has a
SLAPP law in place?
Filed Under: anonymity, blogs, defamation, patents, texas, troll tracker
Companies: cisco