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.'"

Comments

Good for Cisco.

[inTheLoo]

A blog from a technical lawyer is just what the world needs. The only problem could be if the blogger was dealing with issues that concerned Cisco without listing his affiliation. Otherwise, Cisco should have been proud of their employee. It's good they are standing by him and hopefully they will trounce this groundless lawsuit.

Now all they have to do is repudiate software patents and stop cooperating with China.

Re:Good for Cisco.

[maxume]

Could you please clarify what exactly it is you think this situation has to do with congress?

See, it's the Supreme Court that you should be worried about, and to do anything about that, you need to be President(and a little lucky):

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

Re:Good for Cisco.

[harlows_monkeys]

The 1st Amendment was not intended to, and did not, eliminate the tort of libel.

Re:Good for Cisco.

[Crazy_CorranH]

And how does libel infringe on free speech? Sure it provides consequences for some things you may choose to say, but you can still say them.

Re:Good for Cisco.

[maxume]

You've reiterated that you think congress is at fault. You have yet to state why you think so.

Big hand for Troll Tracker

[pieterh]

This guy stood up to the patent mafia and told what was happening. The system is corrupt. It does not promote innovation. It promotes lawsuits and settlements, and the lawyers get richer.

Troll Tracker did a public service by documenting these scum. We need to know.

Cisco are doing good by supporting him. Thanks.

Re:Big hand for Troll Tracker

[Original Replica]

How is it that the judge is not forced to step down after willingly trying cases where he has such an obvious conflict of interest?

Something about Texan father/son combinations that just makes America turn to shit.

Re:personally ...

[klapaucjusz]

I think that any company that has patent and is not implementing them [...] should loose their patent

Patents should not be awarded to companies, only to individuals.

Historically, patent letters have been invented for a reason: to avoid a master craftsman carrying his trade secrets into the grave. The deal is simple: you get a monopoly on an invention until your death, and society as a whole benefits once you're no more. Simple, clean model.

Awarding patents to companies is a subversion of this model, and is the source of all of our troubles.

Re:personally ...

[Shados]

Then someone with a large patent folio to their name would start fearing for their lives... And if many individuals worked on something, how does it work? Its in the name of all the individuals and when they all die its free? What if a company invests 5 billion in some technology's research, put the patent in someone's name, and that person gets a heart attack?

Yeah, I see absolutely no problem with that.