[rkalla]

+1

It reminds me of the Monster Cable lawsuit against Blue Jeans Cables[1] and any other company using "Monster" in the name; including, but not limited to, a go-cart racing company.

Fortunately, the BJC owner was a lawyer in another life and peeled back the layers of the lawsuit to find exactly what you describe... a giant, non-sensical, non-cohesive set of documents showing nothing in particular, not even addressing the specific complaints, just meant as a "pile of scary papers" to make people freak out and write checks.

You are absolutely right, this IS extortion and it IS illegal, but there aren't a whole lot of protections in the system for a little guy trying to counter-sue a firm full of lawyers that have more financial resources to drag it on.

[1] http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm