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Patent Troll Blogger Sued for Defamation

By Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, John Council and Miriam Rozen
March 25, 2008
The moral of this story is 'Blogger Beware,' at least when it comes to blogging anonymously about litigation involving your employer. Before Cisco Systems Inc. in-house lawyer Richard Frenkel outed himself in February as the Patent Troll Tracker blogger, he posted blog entries in October 2007 that alleged two East Texas lawyers conspired with the Eastern District Clerk's Office to alter the filing date of an infringement suit. That suit was filed against Frenkel's employer, Cisco.

On Oct. 18, 2007, Frenkel, who was posting anonymously at that time, alleged in Patent Troll Tracker that the filing date for ESN v. Cisco was changed from Oct. 15, 2007, to Oct. 16, 2007, after ESN's local counsel 'called the EDTX court clerk, and convinced him/her to change the docket to reflect an October 16 filing date, rather than the October 15 filing date.' The filing date is significant, Frenkel alleged in the blog, because the ESN patent that is the basis of the suit was not issued until October 16.

Frenkel identified the local counsel on his blog, and alleged in the posting ' which is attached as an exhibit in two defamation suits recently filed against Frenkel and Cisco ' that it's 'outrageous' that the Eastern District is apparently conspiring with ESN to 'try to manufacture subject matter jurisdiction.'

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