The inventor who holds the patent that was at the heart of two libel lawsuits against "Patent Troll Tracker" blogger Rick Frenkel and Cisco Systems was arrested last week, after police found an illegal stockpile of firearms, ammunition, and grenades in his home in Manchester, Mass., about 30 miles from Boston.

Gregory Girard, named inventor on U.S. Patent No. 7,283,519, believed he was readying himself for "Armageddon," according to police. In addition to having around 20 firearms, Girard was stockpiling food and medicine, camouflage, and body armor, and had built an indoor shooting range in the attic of his condominium, according to accounts of the arrest in the Gloucester Daily Times and the Boston Globe. Girard had a license for the guns, but his explosives, double-edged knives, and habit of shooting indoors are all illegal.

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Greg Girard did come up at the libel trial — but not as an Armageddon-fearing weapons hoarder. Instead, ESN's lawyers praised Girard as a brilliant individual inventor — the cornerstone of American innovation. George McAndrews, a founding partner of McAndrews, Held & Malloy and one of the lawyers representing ESN in the suit against Cisco, praised Girard in a letter to Cisco general counsel Mark Chandler: "Mr. Girard is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they penned the Patent Clause in the basic Article I of the U.S. Constitution." Frenkel's use of the term "Patent Troll" to describe ESN was "outrageous," wrote McAndrews. "Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, both individual inventors like Mr. Girard, were also not manufacturers in the traditional sense," the letter said. "To call Mr. Girard and his company 'Patent Trolls' and to accuse him and his legal counsel of criminal activity is irresponsible, unfair and defamatory."

• Patent Litigation Weekly: Inventor from ESN v. Cisco and Troll Tracker Lawsuits Arrested on Weapons Charges
• Police say man was preparing for Armageddon
• Inventor Involved In Patent Troll Tracker Lawsuit Arrested For Weapons Stockpiling