Slashdot Mirror
Cisco Lawyer Outs Self As "Patent Troll Tracker"
DustyShadow writes "Slashdot previously discussed the $10,000 bounty (since raised to $15,000) that was put on the identity of the Patent Troll Tracker author by a law firm that represents patent holding 'shell' companies. After he received a threatening email last week, the author identified himself as Richard Frenkel, a director in Cisco Systems' intellectual property group. According to law.com, many patent litigators have followed the Troll Tracker closely and are worried that it may now be discontinued. According to the lawyer who offered the bounty, it has not been claimed."
He is an experianced lawyer, I'm sure he considered that very carefully before even starting his blog.
If the patent trolls thought they could get away with dipping the dollar notes in poison (similar to what was done to Donald Woods' children), I'm sure they'd have no problem with paying him. Although they're stupid enough to destroy the patent system, I doubt they're that stupid. On the other hand, I could see them paying the reward to Cisco to dump the guy. Employment in the US is "by will" and there are no IT unions, so the employee has no protection against malicious termination of employment. (The patent trolls could, quite legally, make it extremely difficult for him to ever be hired again.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
TFA says Cisco has gone on record as saying that employees are allowed to have private blogs so long as they follow the business code of conduct. So, short of violating some law, or trying to claim Cisco is somehow involved they'll leave him alone to do his thing.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Of course what he really meant was "I'll get $15K for saying who you are. You pay me $5K and then I'll have $20K in total."