In Depth March 27, 2008, 5:00PM EST

Busting a Rogue Blogger

(page 2 of 3)

Richard Mia

"A TENDENCY TO BE RECKLESS"

While official corporate blogs typically display the names of contributors, anonymous commentary is widespread on the Web. The cloak of an Internet handle may free writers and readers to air controversial opinions. Microsoft (MSFT) has for years tolerated trenchant ribbing from a blogger, presumed to be an employee, who is known only as Mini-Microsoft. But when an employee blogs about company business, anonymity can spell trouble. "I think there's very much a tendency to be reckless when you're posting anonymously—and to be more biased than you normally would be," says Dennis D. Crouch, a law professor at the University of Missouri, who runs Patently-O, the most widely read patent blog. Consider Whole Foods (WFMI) CEO John Mackey, whose pseudonymous trash-talking of rival chain and acquisition target Wild Oats Market on a message board sparked a Securities & Exchange Commission inquiry. (Whole Foods declined to comment.)

Apparently, only a handful of co-workers and his direct supervisor, Mallun Yen, knew of Frenkel's secret second life. A few had even suggested topics to him. After his identity was revealed, Cisco took a path of contrition. In a Mar. 24 post to its corporate blog, Cisco said that even though Frenkel intended his blog to reflect solely his opinion, "Cisco takes responsibility for the content." The statement concluded: "Blogging and blog policy are evolving areas for many companies. We believe we have learned a valuable lesson from this regrettable situation." Cisco declined to say if Frenkel or Yen would be disciplined, noting it does not comment on personnel matters. But the statement noted that Frenkel "has many fans" who "recognize his blog as an important voice in the ongoing national dialogue on patent issues." Cisco did not make Frenkel available for an interview.

Patent trolls, or patent enforcement companies, as they prefer to be known, say they fight big corporations on behalf of bullied individual inventors, who lack the resources to pursue infringement cases on their own. But they have long been a thorn in the side of big tech companies. Frenkel said he launched the blog partly out of frustration at how hard it was to figure out who was behind the shell companies that usually file patent lawsuits. "If you're getting sued for patent infringement, you have a right to know who is really behind the lawsuit," he blogged.

Even as he cloaked his own identity, Frenkel, who is 41, set about untangling the often convoluted relationships between lawyers and patent holders. He wanted to shine a light on what he saw as opportunists that do nothing but pelt big companies with patent claims. A typical example of Troll Tracker's work, from Nov. 26, reads: "In October, Altitude Capital Partners, masquerading as Saxon Innovations, LLC, sued 15 companies in the Eastern District of Texas." Frenkel also traced a patent plaintiff called Software Rights Archive to Altitude's address in New York. (Altitude did not return calls seeking comment.)

At times the blog's tone was playful. In December, Troll Tracker held a haiku contest; a Valentine's Day post displayed a drawing from a patent for a heart-shaped candy box. Readers were impressed. "He was putting an awful lot of time and resources into this," says a patent lawyer who followed the blog. Crouch, the law professor, even e-mailed Troll Tracker to ask if he were interested in making his site a companion to Crouch's own patent blog. The offer was declined.

One of Troll Tracker's favorite bêtes noires was Niro, a Chicago lawyer who is dean of the patent troll bar. Tired of the blog's bashing, Niro, 65, in November announced a $5,000 reward for the author's outing. A couple of weeks later, a Troll Tracker reader posted a comment to the blog: "If you shoot and kill Ray Niro tonight, I would consider it a justifiable killing."

The comment reverberated across the blogosphere. At the tech blog Slashdot, another anonymous poster amplified the threat to include Niro's family members, publishing his wife's name, as well as their home addresses and phone numbers. By February, Niro had raised the bounty to $15,000, but not, he says, because of the death threats. "I wanted to expose this guy because I thought he had an agenda," says Niro, senior partner at Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro. He says the threats astonished him: "I mean, what the heck, I'm a patent attorney." When he e-mailed Troll Tracker on Jan. 17 to complain, Frenkel responded the same day, noting that he didn't read all comments on his blog, but that he had deleted the threat. Objecting to Niro calling him a "hate monger," he wrote, "We can still disagree about things and be civil."

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