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."

Comments

Re:Bounty

[yog]

Shame, it sounds like he was making a valuable contribution to the discussion on patent reform. I read his blog but I still don't understand why he outed himself. What could this anonymous person have done to him that could possibly be "unpleasant"?

Someone please explain :(

I hope we can get rid of patent trolls soon, they really annoy me!

Sad

[Steeltalon]

I can only hope that this doesn't ruin the guy's career at Cisco. His actions have probably helped many businesses and products but I have to wonder if he may have violated the terms of his employment. I hope not, at any rate.

Re:Sad

[microbee]

Well, his direct manager knew about this, so he cannot be in violation of his terms of employment. I mean, if he did, and his manager was still OK, it's his manager's fault more than his own, and if Cisco fires him, he could sue the heck out of this, couldn't he?

Now, I said the above purely from a logistical point. Having worked at Cisco before (as an engineer), I feel Cisco is a pretty open-cultured company, and given the positive publicity of this blog, I'm pretty sure Cisco wouldn't mind it.

Destroying the patent system from the inside.

[miffo.swe]

I think theese patent trolls are doing us a great service. Its just a matter of time before one of them get greedy and steps in the wrong wasps nest. If anything it shows with utter clarity that the EU should in no way allow software patents. The problems by far outweights the benefits since the patents are seldom used to produce something, they are just ownership of pretty obvious ideas. Most patents for software is just about doing something really old, but on a computer.

I say the more patent trolls the better, let them ruin a broken system. The more companies that get burnt the more they will lobby for reform. Since the US is pretty much run by big companies thats the only way the politicians will do something.

Cisco's interests

[xant]

Moreover, his actions were very likely in Cisco's interests, and directly related to his job duties at Cisco. Cisco is not a patent troll afaik, they are more likely to be the victim of frequent patent trolling by companies wanting to profit from their products.

Cisco probably patents a lot of stuff, but like most big patent holders, they presumably use them defensively.

Feel free to do my research for me, but I say the above with a fair amount of confidence. :-)

Re:Depends.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? Yes, they are going to pay Cisco 15K to dump an employee. Cisco isn't a corner grocery. They're a BILLION dollar company....Hell, my company wouldn't fire an employee for that cash...because we are ethical. It' not even worth 15K of his bosses time to consider the question....What are you thinking?

Bonus question: Explain how exactly patent trolls could make it hard for him to be hired again...What are they going to do, expose him as an IP lawyer who has some ethics?

Your BS also ignores the fact that his boss knows about his blog! Don't just RTFA, actually think for 2 seconds before posting.