Richard Frenkel

In October 2007, Richard Frenkel made anonymous blog comments on a patent infringement case in which Cisco was the defendant.[3] On the blog, he claimed that the plaintiff, a company named ESN, filed a law suit a day before the patent was issued (which if true meant the case had no legal standing[4]), and that subsequently ESN's local counsel convinced a federal courthouse clerk to switch the date on the docket to the next day.[3] At that time, a $15,000 bounty for his identity had also been offered [4][5] by Chicago attorney Raymond Niro Sr.[2]

After Rick Frenkel revealed his identity on February 23, 2008,[5][6] in the entry titled "Live by anonymity, die by anonymity",[2] attorneys T. John Ward, Jr., the son of East Texas federal Judge T. John Ward,[4] and Eric Albritton filed defamation actions against Cisco and Frenkel.[3] "The attorneys [were] seeking damages for shame, embarrassment, humiliation, mental pain, and anguish. Further, the attorneys state[d] injuries to their "business reputation, good name, and standing in the community, and [would] be exposed to the hatred, contempt, and ridicule of the public in general as well as of his business associates, clients, friends, and relatives.""[4]

The Albritton case went to trial in Tyler, Texas on September 14, 2009.[8] After Judge Richard A. Schell ruled that Albritton had to prove actual malice to be eligible for punitive damages, the litigation settled.[9] The Ward case—which was filed against Cisco and not Frenkel—settled in January 2010.[10]

Frenkel left Cisco in August 2008 to join the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a patent litigator.[11] He was a partner with the firm.[12] At the time he joined the firm, he said he was done with blogging.[11]

• Richard G. Frenkel, Intellectual Property in the Balance: Proposals for Improving Industrial Design Protection in the Post-TRIPS Era, 32 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 531, 541 (1999) (pdf)