Fans of patent blogs will recall the now-defunct Troll Tracker blog. That blog, which was written anonymously, unmasked the various shell corporations behind which the ownership of many asserted patents was hidden. Along the way, the blog attracted the attention – and scorn – of several attorneys who represented those non-practicing owners. One of those attorneys offered a bounty for revealing the identity of the Troll Tracker, and eventually, when threatened with being outed, the author revealed himself: he was Rick Frenkel, who at the time worked for Cisco.
This in turn led to the filing of a lawsuit against Mr. Frenkel by two irate lawyers from the Eastern District of Texas. They had filed a patent infringement suit that was stamped by the court as being received a day before the patent issued; the date stamp was then later changed to the following date, without the court records indicating that the change had been made, let alone why. In his blog Mr. Frenkel was none-too-sympathetic in his characterization of the lawyers’ behavior, leading to the filing of the suit against him. I won’t go into the rest of the details; interested readers can Google the story or read this paper by Jake Ward of the Anticipate This! blog that tells the tale. (The case against Mr. Frenkel ultimately settled; under the terms of the settlement he’s not allowed to discuss it.)
Turns out that patent trolls (or non-practicing entities, or whatever you want to call them) aren’t the only ones who jump the gun in trigger-happy Texas (where, I’m told, but haven’t confirmed, it’s legal to carry open liquor, firearms and ammunition in the cab of one’s pick-up truck). According to court records, yesterday (June 6) Hydro-Quebec – hardly a patent troll – filed suit in the Northern District of Texas (Civil Action No. 3:11-cv-01216-B , the Hon. Jane J Boyle presiding), asserting a patent relating to the very non-troll-like subject of materials for lithium batteries (US 7,955,733) that only issued today (June 7). Apparently someone realized what had happened, but, learning from the mistakes of their brethren in the bar in EDTX, had the good sense to re-file the same complaint shortly after midnight today (Civil Action No. 3:11-cv-01217-K , the Hon. Ed Kinkeade presiding), rather than contact the court clerk and have that person change the filing date. A notice of related case has already been filed and presumably the plaintiff will move to dismiss the earlier-filed case without prejudice.
(Hat tip to PriorSmart for reporting both filings.)
