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Cisco, Troll Tracker Blogger Sued For Defamation
Joe Mullin writes "We've discussed Troll Tracker here before — the anonymous blogger who was outed last month as Rick Frenkel, a Cisco lawyer. Since then, two lawyers from the notoriously patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas have filed defamation suits against Frenkel and Cisco, and Frenkel's blog has been shuttered. One of the plaintiffs, a renowned patent judge's son, may have been hunting the anonymous blogger for months. This week Cisco announced new blogging guidelines in response to the Troll Tracker fiasco. The company acknowledged that 'a few Cisco employees used poor judgment' during secret-blog-time, but they're largely standing by their man. Cisco's new rules will prohibit only anonymous blogging by employees about issues for which 'they have responsibilities at Cisco.'"
It seems most of the commentators here have not looked at the filings in this case, or read the numerous articles about it on various legal blogs. It is not quite as is being reported here. The two lawyers who are suing him were representing the other side in a case against Cisco. On his blog, he accused them of altering the filing date on some court documents. That's a very serious accusation--if they did it, it would be both a breach of legal ethics and a felony.
In general, it is very very bad for a lawyer to publicly accuse another lawyer of committing a felony unless the accuser has some pretty damned convincing evidence.
And it is a zillion times worse when the accusing lawyer is counsel for the other side in a case the accused lawyer is working on.
Troll Tracker screwed up big time here (heck, commenting AT ALL on a case involving Cisco is a bit shocking), and is probably going to have to cough up a public apology and a wad of cash. It's not about free speech, as some other posters have suggested--it is a plain, old-fashioned "if you accuse someone of a serious crime, you'd better be able to back it up" case.
There's an informative post about the case here. That's a handy blog about activity in the Eastern District of Texas. There was also good coverage in Business Week.