Friday Shorts: Bilski, Troll Tracker, Patent Reform

Bilski Oral Arguments Aweigh! Yesterday, the CAFC heard oral arguments for In re Bilski, No. 2007-1130 to consider what, and what is not, patentable subject matter. To listen to an MP3 of the oral arguments, click here.

Eyewitness accounts are rolling in - over at the PLI Blog, Gene Quinn has a good play-by-play of the oral arguments (link). Josh Sarnoff over at the AU Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property Blog (link) has an eyewitness account and some additional thoughts. Charley Mecedo kindly emailed me his account of the argument

InformationWeek also has an article here (link), and the Associated Press weighed in here (link).

No one has a sense of how the CAFC will exactly rule on this issue. The consensus, at this point, is that State Street will likely be intact, software will still be patentable, and we can expect another layer of analysis to be added to the onion skin of patentable subject matter (e.g., post-solution activity, etc.).

Patent Troll Tracker Litigation Update: Joe Mullin has the latest on the fireworks surrounding the defamation lawsuit against Frenkel (aka The Patent Troll Tracker). There's a lot in his latest post (link), including commentary from none other than Ray Niro.

Is Patent Reform Getting Ready For a Tapout? From the Economist: "While the arguments rage in the courts, Congress seems content to do nothing at all about patent reform. On May 5th the Senate removed the bipartisan Patent Reform Act from its calendar."

Patent Troll Tracker Litigation Update

Joe Mullin, reporter at IP Law & Business magazine and author of the Prior Art Blog has some additional information on the Ward/Albritton lawsuit against Frenkel and Cisco (see 271 Blog post below). As many have noticed already, the Ward complaint "making the rounds" is an amended complaint. According to the the case docket in Gregg County District Court (link), the case was originally filed as John Ward, Jr. v. John Doe et al. on Nov. 7, 2007, and it is presumed that the complaint was filed with the notion of deposing someone at Google, who oversees the Blogger.com sevice used by Frenkel.

Since filing the complaint, the timelines are as follows:

Jan. 24: Petition to depose granted.

Feb. 23: Troll Tracker is revealed to be Rick Frenkel, an IP director at Cisco Systems.

Feb. 27: Ward Jr. filed an amended complaint claiming defamation against Cisco and Frenkel.

March 3: Eric Albritton files a separate complaint against Cisco and Frenkel.

This is going to be an interesting case to watch. According to Joe, there appear to be some discrepancies in the Troll Tracker posts that are alleged to contain the defamatory statements. The original post-in-question was changed by Frenkel after receiving additional information from a reader. Frenkel acknowledged those changes when they were made. However, only the original post was submitted to the court. Read Joe's post in its entirety here.

Also, as noted by Dennis at Patently-O, the PACER filing information still reflected that the case had been originally filed on the 15th, but the PACER complaint filing date now indicated October 16 (see here and here).

*TROLL TRACKER SUED*

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further"

- Darth Vader, Empire Strikes Back (1980)

John Ward v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (2007-2502-A), 188th District, Gregg County Texas

On February 27, John Ward filed a complaint in district court alleging defamation against Richard Frenkel (aka the Patent Troll Tracker) and Cisco. According to the complaint:

On or about October 18, 2007 Defendant Frenkel made statements to the effect that Plaintiff had conspired with others to alter the filing date on a civil complaint that Plaintiff filed on behalf of Plaintiff's client in Federal Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. Defendant alleged that Plaintiff had engaged in this felonious activity in order to create subject matter jurisdiction against the defendant named in the civil complaint. The defendant in the civil complaint was Cisco Systems, Inc., which also happened to be Defendant Frenkel's employer.

* * *

As a direct and proximate result of Defendant Frenkel's false and defamatory statements, the Plaintiff has endured shame, embarrassment, humiliation, and mental pain and anguish. Additionally, the Plaintiff has and will in the future be seriously injured in his business reputation, good name, and standing in the community, and will be exposed to the hatred, contempt, and ridicule of the public in general as well as of his business associates, clients, friends, and relatives. Consequently, the Plaintiff seeks actual damages in a sum within the jurisdictional limits of this Court.

Read/download a copy of the complaint here (link)


Reports are starting to come in from the blogosphere:

- The Prior art Blog (link)

- Robert Ambrogi (link)

- Legal Pad (Cal Law) (link)

- Legal Satyricon (link)

UPDATE: The 271 Blog received the following statement from Cisco:

"The parties have mutually agreed to make no comment on the lawsuit in question at this time. That said, we would like to underscore that the comments made in the employee's personal blog represented his own opinions and several of his comments are not consistent with Cisco's views. We continue to have high regard for the judiciary of the Eastern District of Texas and confidence in the integrity of its judges."

Unmasked: The Patent Troll Tracker Steps Forward

Less than 6 months after having a bounty placed on his identity (recently upped to $15k) by Ray Niro, the Patent Troll Tracker has stepped forward and revealed himself - he is none other than Rick Frenkel, Director of Intellectual Property at Cisco Systems, Inc. (see his LinkedIn profile here).

According to Rick:

I got an anonymous email, from the guy who probably collected the bounty, telling me I better tell everyone who I am (and he clearly knew), or else he would take care of it for me. The clear threat in the email is that he would do it in a way I wouldn't be happy about. I don't know what that means, but as I have been growing weary of anonymity anyway, here I am.

View his "coming out" post here (link).