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While it looks like the attempt to get Rick Frenkel, better known as the “Patent Troll Tracker” into court on a separate patent-related dispute has gone nowhere, there’s an interesting side dispute as part of this that touches on the age-old debate concerning the border of blogging and journalism. Frenkel told the court that since the Troll Tracker blog was a side project, not an effort of Cisco, and since he was, effectively, a journalist in writing it, he could not be compelled to testify since it “would result in a serious detriment to Frenkel’s future ability to gather and disseminate news.”
However, Frenkel’s nemesis, patent attorney Ray Niro responded by scoffing at these claims, and ticking off
the reasons why Frenkel should not be considered a journalist. Unfortunately, in doing so, Niro displays a rather profound ignorance concerning what it means to be a journalist (one would hope that […]