A patent lawyer who sued the Electronic Frontier Foundation for defamation for writing about his invention in a "Stupid Patent of the Month" blog post has dropped the lawsuit.

"There was no settlement or agreement," EFF general counsel Kurt Opsahl told Ars in an e-mail. "It was a voluntary dismissal of a meritless lawsuit by Scott Horstemeyer."

The lawsuit, which was served on Monday and dropped on Thursday, named both the EFF and EFF lawyer Daniel Nazer, who authored the April blog post, as defendants.

Horstemeyer referred interview requests to his lawyer, Sanford Asman. Asman didn't respond to e-mailed requests for comment.

Yesterday, Asman sent EFF a follow-up letter (PDF) saying that his lawsuit was intended to address "malicious and defamatory remarks" that were "simply not right." However, Asman wrote that he would drop the case, since his understanding was that Michael Barclay, a longtime patent lawyer who sometimes volunteers for EFF, would be employed "as a reviewer prior to the future publication of articles in which unqualified individuals, such as Mr. Nazer, are permitted to unilaterally, and inaccurately, opine as to issues of Patent Law."

With that, Asman said the lawsuit had been dismissed, and declared victory. "[M]y client believes his action has had the desired effect."

EFF's outside lawyer Eric Schroeder wrote a response (PDF) saying that while EFF was "gratified" the lawsuit had been dismissed, Asman was mistaken if he believed any changes whatsoever were being made to the "Stupid Patent of the Month" series. "Neither EFF, nor I, ever agreed that it would change any processes in response to anything you said on that call," Schroeder wrote. He continues:

While I did not inform you of the details of EFF's editorial process, I did inform you that EFF thoroughly reviews its articles before publication, and I informed you that EFF would almost certainly reject any suggested changes to its editorial processes going forward, though I was happy to convey any settlement offer you had to propose. To be clear, EFF does not agree to any particular procedure for review of its blog posts, and retains its editorial discretion.

In the blog post, entitled "Eclipse IP casts a shadow over innovation," Nazer—who has worked on patent cases for years, both at EFF and in private practice earlier—describes how Horstemeyer got a patent for "systems and methods" that describe changing the quantity of a product being delivered.

"While Horstemeyer has not made any genuine contribution to notification 'technology,' he has shown advanced skill at gaming the patent system," wrote Nazer, in a passage that was called out by Asman as being defamatory.

The patents acquired by Horstemeyer get moved into Eclipse IP, a shell company and "patent troll" that has filed more than 100 patent lawsuits against a variety of defendants. Eclipse also sends out demand letters asking businesses for $45,000, reminding them that if they don't pay, Eclipse "aggressively litigates patent infringement lawsuits."

Horstemeyer's attorney, Sanford Asman, also recently sued legal software startup CaseRails for trademark infringement and defamation. That case involves Asman's claims that Ars Technica published a "slanted" article about Asman's dispute with CaseRails that caused him to be slandered in Internet comments and harassed on social media.