Troll Tracker has been unmasked as a patent lawyer for Cisco. Now they're both facing litigation.

Those who abuse the patent system appear to be suffering significant setbacks

So now that it’s happened, let me introduce myself. My name is Rick Frenkel. I started in IP over 10 years ago, as a law clerk at Lyon & Lyon in Los Angeles. After a few years there as a law clerk and attorney, I litigated patent cases for several years at Irell & Manella. Two years ago I moved to the Valley and went in-house at Cisco. In my career, I have represented plaintiffs, defendants, large companies, small companies, individual inventors, universities, and everything in between. I currently work at Cisco.

If you're getting sued for patent infringement, you have a right to know who is really behind the lawsuit, and so does the public. So I started digging up publicly available information. What I found amazed me - so many patent plaintiffs, especially in the Eastern District of Texas, make no products, and just try to extract money out of their IP.

Those who are watching ZDNet closely will find Microsoft being described as “the biggest patent troll in the world.” Legal harassment need not be direct if Microsoft accumulates industry partners and friends who do their ‘dirty laundry’

Beagle has had its 15 minutes of fame. Now Tracker offers Beagle's capabilities and more. And it's faster, too.

IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state. And now let's play, where's Microsoft?

The IP firm that filed patent litigation against Red Hat and Novell mounted legal threats against many other U.S. software companies in 2007 including Oracle, SAP, Computer Associates, EMC, Adobe, Autodesk, Apple, SPSS — and Novell.

Lots of news about patents, including the problems in Europe and Microsoft's patent troll of choice.