Software Experts

Patent litigation involving software demands strategic precision, particularly in timing the engagement of a software expert witness. These professionals dissect complex codebases, algorithms, and system architectures, delivering technical clarity to bolster infringement claims, invalidity defenses, or damages assessments.

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT are increasingly attractive to attorneys facing time pressures and high client expectations. Drafting briefs, motions, or discovery responses can be faster when supported by a generative AI system. But in recent months, courts have penalized attorneys who relied on AI-generated content without proper vetting. A New York federal court fined lawyers who filed a brief containing fabricated case citations, and more recently, a California attorney was sanctioned for filing a response with false authorities generated by ChatGPT CalMatters report.

In the world of software litigation, very few disputes are as deceptively complex as determining whether one program is “substantially similar” to another. Unlike plagiarism in prose, where copied sentences often betray the act, software is written in ways that make verbatim copying unnecessary. A developer may use different variable names, restructure functions, or change comments, while still replicating the heart of another’s work. Courts have developed the concept of substantial similarity to address these situations, looking beyond literal line-by-line matches to evaluate whether the expression of ideas in code has been misappropriated.