Lawyer Puts $10k Bounty on Blogger's Identity 286
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Raymond Niro of Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is fighting back against criticism from the Patent Troll Tracker blog by offering a $10,000 bounty for the identity of the person behind it. He thinks the blogger might work for Microsoft, Intel, or has connections to a 'serial infringer' and that could 'color' what they say."
Tu quoque (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So long as said blogger is truthful.... (Score:5, Interesting)
After reading his blog [blogspot.com] it's evident that this bounty is the only thing this lawyer can do. This blogger is good with what he writes and knows his limits. They won't be able to force blogspot into divulging that info without a warrant in my opinion though I am not a lawyer, I still have a soul.
Have they tried asking Mr. Troll Tracker nicely? He lists his e-mail as trolltracker@gmail.com
Re:So long as said blogger is truthful.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is getting rediculous (Score:3, Interesting)
(See previous references as to why Jesus hates the poor. Let's remember, Jesus only loves money, and those with lots of it).
Re:Reality check (Score:4, Interesting)
Flip this shit around. (Score:5, Interesting)
Vigilantism is not only necessary, it is justified. We need to seek out the personal information of this lawyer, his entire firm, and the President and board of directors of the companies that employ them. Publish their names, home addresses, any phone numbers that can be found, their license plate numbers, the names of their family members, the schools their children attend. Everything. This is War, ladies and gentlemen. Of a more dire and extreme sort than any in history. Only by securing true strategic objectives can the enemy be worn down. We must destroy not just his willingness, but his ability to fight. Destroy the ability of those who drive the conflict to live their lives in the most basic way and victory is assured.
We, the greater whole of society, are everywhere. We surround them. We can destroy them. All that is required is the will.
Re:Copyright Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doosh... (Score:1, Interesting)
The importance of what is said vs. who says it (Score:5, Interesting)
[http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2008/01/j-carl-cooper-and-technology-licensing.html]:
"As a practicing patent attorney with a large corporation, I can see why PTT and other commentators might want not to divulge their name. His anonymity works for me, because the subject of our interest shouldn't be who PTT is, but rather whether the US patent system is functioning effectively and fairly. And PTT's remarks on patent predators aren't any less germane because the sharks are identified by name, and he/she isn't. Forget that it's Niro (or Acacia, or whoever) that PTT comments on, and focus on the fact that they and others are manipulating an imperfect system to the detriment of both the system and its participants.
BTW, there are those who might defend the abuses written of here as nothing more than "arbitrage". I don't agree. Arbitrage smooths out market irregularities caused by assymetrical information or unbalanced supply and demand. It is ethical, and even helpful, where a market is efficient and the market rules are clear and fairly enforced. The swamp of legal, political, technical and economic uncertainties that trolls are rooting around in (and helping muddy up) is more like an armed prospectors' land-grab than what the patent system set out to be: A reward of exclusivity in return for the useful sharing of information. Vigorous enforcement of patents on trivial or useless "inventions", by contingency-fee opportunists, doesn't make them any less trivial and useless. And bundling or accumulating them under shell corporations, the better to leverage them against companies for whom the expected value of a loss at trial (however unlikely) exceeds the price of a settlement, does nothing to better the "market" for IP. It doesn't promote adoption or commercialisation of technology. It doesn't raise capital in support of yet more innovation. It doesn't improve the function of the patent system. It's extortion, pure and simple.
This isn't an abstract, theoretical discussion. It won't be long before Congress, made up of individuals who understand neither the purpose nor the functioning of the US patent system, begins to tinker with it as if it were a tax code with which additional revenues could be extracted and assets could be more equitably redistributed. Trolls cheapen the patent system in a way that makes legislative erosion even more likely. The abuses PTT writes about call the patent monopoly and its proponents into disrepute, and thereby weaken the rights appropriately reserved under other patents to those who really have made a technical contribution to society. As far as I'm concerned, PTT can call the trolls by name. The moneys they've extracted from productive members of society should be enough consolation for them.
Blog on, PTT!
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