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Lawyer Offers Bounty to Unmask Blawger

There is sport in unmasking anonymous blawgers and some such blawgers choose to unmask themselves. But that sport grew ugly this month, or at least weird, when lawyer Raymond P. Niro, cofounder of Chicago plaintiffs' IP firm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, offered a $5,000 bounty to unmask the anonymous author of the blog Patent Troll Tracker. Niro made his offer via an article by writer John Bringardner in IP Law & Business. "I'll offer $5,000 to anyone that can provide information that leads me to the identity of Troll Tracker," Niro said. "I view these people [anonymous bloggers] as know-nothings, afraid to reveal their identity."

Niro's stated reason for wanting to unmask the lawyer known as Troll Tracker is to sue him for patent infringement. It probably helps that Troll Tracker has been critical of Niro and called him a troll. Bringardner explains:

"[I]t is the same patent Niro used to try and silence another vocal critic nearly a decade before. In 2000 Niro filed suit to enforce the patent against the Green Bay Packers, a now-defunct porn site, and others. Greg Aharonian, the unabashedly outspoken author of the Internet Patent News Service, derided Niro's patent as 'crap,' and Niro added him to the suit. A third party filed for a reexamination of the '341 patent, and this September, seven years later, it emerged with one claim left intact, covering asymmetric decompression involved in the display of .jpg images on Web sites. But that one claim is enough for Niro to use the patent to threaten Troll Tracker."

As for the bounty hunter's prey, Troll Tracker says that the sum of his posts about Niro hardly warrant this degree of nastiness. "This is just a publicity stunt, to get him attention. ... I don't know whether to be flattered by the attention or insulted by the amount." Meanwhile, at Mises.org Weblog, Stephan Kinsella sees the story as "a sad commentary on our perverted legal and property rights system" and "yet another example of how IP violates other rights, like the right to free speech."

Other commentary: As the Troll Turns, Patent Attorney Offers $5K For Identify of Anonymous Patent Troll Tracker, Ray Niro Offers $5,000 for Identity of Author of 'Troll Tracker' Blog, Troll Tracker: Tracker of 'Patent Trolls', Blogger ... Patent Infringer? and Advice and a bounty ... .

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on December 7, 2007 at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Comments

See 18 U.S.C. § 241. Conspiracy against rights.

Why isn't Ray Niro in jail right now?

Posted by: Ned Ulbricht | Dec 7, 2007 6:09:56 PM

Wow...lawyers duking it out on the Internet. Someone pop some corn. I love it when lawyers blog annoymously. It makes it mysterious and a challenge to figure out who they are, but if I ever figured out who s/he was, I wouldn't turn them in, not even for $5K. What's wrong with a lawyer blogging annonymously? Some times the only way to get your story heard is to blog annonymously.

Who will I vote for? I'll have to read both sides of the story first, but this will be more entertaining than my own pathetic fight against lawyers who are mean.

Posted by: Shark Girl | Dec 8, 2007 1:27:20 PM

I find this entire situation to be rather silly, personally.

Unfortunately, it seems that where laws are written, good people are meant to suffer (the quote "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing" comes to mind here).

IANAL, but I feel I must state this for those of us who understand the law, but are not certified to practice, nor have any formal education in the law:

The fact is, we have 2 or more laws in conflict with one-another. the right to free speech should (within "reasonable" bounds) trump the right of who who seeks the identity of the anonymous person exercising his rights.

In any case, this entire situation has reached ridiculous proportions because "someone" feels slighted. What ever happened to decency and common sense?

Oh yeah, if Mr. Niro chooses to add me to his lawsuit because of this, I invite him to try.

As for his "bounty" to find the identity of Troll Tracker? All he needs to do is look close to home (and if you do find him, I claim that bounty for the suggestion).

Posted by: Jason Scarlett | Jan 29, 2008 2:08:27 AM

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