SoftwareLitigationConsulting.com (Andrew Schulman) partners with the following firms, which also work on technical aspects of software- and network-related litigation:
DisputeSoft (http://www.disputesoft.com)
DisputeSoft specializes in liability issues arising in computer software cases. DisputeSoft’s 20+ experts deliver wide-ranging technical consulting services required by counsel to cost-effectively resolve disputes. DisputeSoft’s clients include Big Law firms, boutique practices, and sole practitioners who represent Fortune 100 companies, government clients, and corporate and individual clients across all industries in disputes involving software failure, intellectual property, and computer forensics.
DisputeSoft’s team of professionals leverages years of experience in the legal and information technology fields, including significant experience as consulting experts, testifying experts, and software analysts. Their experts’ robust low-level knowledge of software allows DisputeSoft to consult on matters that involve novel or highly customized software products, reach findings and opinions, prepare expert reports, and defend opinions at deposition and trial.
Based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, with an office in New York City, their practice is international in scope, with clients located in Europe, Asia, Canada, and major U.S. cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, and San Francisco. DisputeSoft has served as a technical expert on disputes before state and federal courts, including the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC), U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), and U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and before domestic and international arbitration panels.
Sample DisputeSoft cases with source-code examination:
- Hospital dispute with medical software vendor (support contract)
- State health insurance exchange (pre-litigation investigation)
- Smartphone touch screen (patents)
- Prison telephone system (patent)
- Property management (contract breach)
- Casualty policy admin & billing (arbitration re: COBOL to Java)
- Aviation maintenance (copyright)
- County property tax management (contract software failure)
- Payroll software (copyright)
- Oil & gas exploration (copyright)
- Tenant management system (contract, project failure)
- Exam prep materials (copyright & trade secrets)
- Online sales leads (copyright)
- Social media: Facebook (trade secrets)
- Source audit due diligence in M&A
See their web site at http://www.disputesoft.com; Andrew Schulman profile at https://www.disputesoft.com/experts/andrew-schulman/
GreyB (https://www.greyb.com/)
GreyB is a technology research and analytics firm that offers IP related search, software solutions and engineering services. For past 15 years they have worked on various search assignments related prior art search, infringement investigations and as needed have reverse engineered many products to prove infringement or existence of prior art. Be it a teardown of a mobile, an OLED display, or if you need to analyse the signals of Fingerprint IC, GreyB has hands-on experience with such reverse engineering studies:
- Product teardown — Identify internal boards, components, ICs, etc. For example, in one of our previous projects we helped our client identify the NFC chip (Make & Model) in flagship smartphone models of various companies.
- Material categorization — To identify material composition. For example, in a project we helped our client identify the shape and structure of a nano-composite material used in protective coating for ceramic containers.
- Thin-film Layer categorization — We can help you identify layer structure or the material of the different layers of thin films (up to nanometer (nm) resolution). For example, in one study, we helped our client study different thin film layers of a magnetic storage layer of a hard disc drive. The objective was to confirm the presence of a ~3 nm thick carbon layer. It further involved studying the electrical and magnetic properties of different layers.
- Circuit and Signal analysis — We can perform chip-level circuit analysis for mobile or similar electronic devices, and signal analysis to analyse different signals of the ICs. For example, in a recent project, we helped a client study the signal communication between a power management IC, a fingerprint reader, and a microprocessor of a smartphone to understand the different signals and their timing during the phone unlocking event.
Products GreyB has efficiently reverse engineered and studied include:
- Mobile Phones,
- LCD/LED Televisions,
- OLED Displays,
- Smart bands,
- RFID Tags,
- Optical Connectors,
- Hard Disc Drives,
- Batteries,
- Coating Materials, etc.
GreyB has access to variety of tools such as:
- Scanning or Transmission Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM)
- Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX)
- X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)
- Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)
- Time-of-flight or Dynamics Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF/Dynamics SIMS)
- Signal Generators and Mixed Signal Oscilloscope
See their web site at http://www.greyb.com; Andrew Schulman profile at https://www.greyb.com/andrew-schulman/ (though I have merely assisted GreyB, not “guiding” it re: “certain reverse engineering, patent infringement, and Evidence of Use studies”).
Some particularly useful GreyB articles:
- Why Image Analysis is Important in A Prior Art Search (by Rajesh Agarwal, Senior Research Analyst, Prior Art team)
- Smart Ways to Perform Patent Invalidity Searches for Mathematical Expressions (by Abhishek Bhatia, Team Lead, Concept Hacking and Mahesh Maan, Senior Research Analyst, Prior Art)
Boston Software Forensics (Richard M. Smith) (http://www.bsf-llc.com/)
Providing technical research and consulting services for software litigation and review, including:
- Experienced expert investigation and exposition
- Source code analysis: understanding software’s technical purpose from its original design
- Behavioral analysis: understanding software’s behavior through live experiments
- Security and privacy audits of Web sites and Internet-enabled software
BSF’s clients have engaged Richard M. Smith in cases including trade secrets, patents, privacy, internal product reviews, and antitrust.
For more information, see http://www.bsf-llc.com/
Dr. Martin has been working in the computer software field for over 40 years, in the roles of developer, designer, professor, and expert consultant. He specializes in source code analysis, interpretation, and explanation in software litigation. His clients have engaged him on topics including:
- Security software (digital rights management, encryption, authentication)
- Application programs (productivity software, database, handheld apps)
- World Wide Web software and applications
- Operating systems
- Search engines
- Media devices
For more information, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-martin-9730254/