Cisco: Nothin' to Say. Except, Don't Blame Us

Cisco: Nothin' to Say. Except, Don't Blame Us

Zusha Elinson
Legal Pad

March 11, 2008

Legal Pad is aching to know what Cisco really thinks of its erstwhile Troll Tracker — the anonymous blogger unmasked [ http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1203939959609 ] two weeks ago as a Cisco kid: in-house lawyer Rick Frenkel.

Although Frenkel wrote that his direct supervisor knew about his blog, which took merciless aim at patent trolls, a Cisco spokesman told us that the company wasn’t involved at all. Now, two Texas patent lawyers who appeared in the blog are suing Frankel and Cisco for defamation (from the Daily Journal via The Prior Art blog [ http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/ ]) and the big tech company is continuing to distance itself.

"The parties have mutually agreed to make no comment on the lawsuit in question at this time,” another Cisco spokesman emailed Legal Pad. “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."

As of today, Cisco still likes Frankel enough to keep him around. Although Frenkel didn’t return phone messages, the spokesman confirmed that he is still with the company.

As mentioned above, you can read more about the lawsuit on the Prior Art, by IP Law & Business writer Joe Mullin (known to us as “the guy two cubes over”), which also has an interesting discussion [ http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2008/03/judge-wards-son.html ] on posts that Frenkel did on cases involving what we now know to be his employer, Cisco.

04:28 PM