CYBERCRIME PATENT COPIES STYLE

Even patent folks can have a dark side:  Myron Tereshchuk pleaded guilty this month to "attempted extortion affecting commerce" for demanding a $17 million ransom in exchange for not broadcasting proprietary information he obtained from MicroPatent, LLC, an intellectual property firm that packages patent and trademark information for law firms.  DOJ's Statement of Facts can be found here.

Tereshchuk ran a small, competing patent document service that ran into trouble when he was allegedly caught removing files from US Patent and Trademark Office, and was temporarily banned from the facility. Tereshchuk believed he was the victim of corruption at the patent office, and blamed MicroPatent, according to court records. He began penetrating the company's computers, going through its trash, and pseudonymously sending harassing e-mails to its customers and president.

Slashdot has an entry on Mr. Tereshchuk as "World's Dumbest Criminal" and as a primer on how not to hack corporate sites.  Everything has a caste system, it appears.