Software Expert Witness Consulting
Sidespin Group provides testifying and consulting expert witnesses for software and technology litigation. Our network of experts covers patent infringement, invalidity, copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and breach of contract cases, with source code analysis to support each engagement.
Our experts have testified in U.S. District Courts, the International Trade Commission (ITC), Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings, state courts, and arbitration.
How We Help Clients
Patent Infringement
Patent infringement cases involving software require experts who can map claims to source code, explain technical functionality to non-technical audiences, and withstand cross-examination. Our experts have opined on infringement and invalidity in cases involving Google, Apple, Facebook, Intel, Nokia, and other major technology companies. We support claim construction, infringement analysis, damages input, and source code review.
Trade Secret Misappropriation
Trade secret cases in software typically involve former employees who take proprietary code, algorithms, or technical knowledge to a competitor. The technical challenge is identifying what constitutes the trade secret, whether it was actually misappropriated, and whether it has independent economic value. Our experts analyze source code, development histories, and technical documentation to build or defend these claims.
IPR & Validity
Inter partes review and validity challenges require precise mapping of prior art to patent claims. The analysis must hold up to the PTAB‘s distinct evidentiary standards while remaining consistent with any parallel district court positions. Our experts prepare invalidity and validity opinions, analyze prior art references, and provide declarations for IPR petitions and responses.
Source Code Review
Source code review is central to most software litigation. Whether the task is identifying infringing functionality, tracing misappropriated trade secrets, or evaluating code quality in a breach of contract dispute, the analysis must be rigorous and the explanation must be clear. Our reviewers have worked at companies including Google and Facebook, and routinely handle codebases in C, C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, and other major languages.
Copyright Infringement
Software copyright cases range from direct code copying to more complex claims of contributory copyright infringement, where a platform or service facilitates unauthorized copying by others. These cases require analysis of code similarity, clean room development practices, and the scope of copyright protection for functional elements. Our Ph.D. computer scientists have handled both direct and contributory copyright infringement matters.
Breach of Contract
Software development projects that fail to meet contractual obligations are a common source of litigation. The disputes typically involve missed deadlines, budget overruns, or deliverables that do not meet specifications. Pinpointing the technical root cause requires experienced software development experts who can distinguish miscommunication from incompetence from unreasonable expectations. Our experts have supported breach of contract cases including a $20 million verdict involving proprietary LTE technology.
Clients
Our experts have been retained by both plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving Google, Facebook, Apple, Uber, Intel, Cloudflare, Nokia, eBay, Salesforce, Slack, Dell, Roku, and others.
Previously Retained by
We have worked with attorneys at Fox Rothschild, Alston & Bird, Boies Schiller Flexner, Ropes & Gray, Manning, Morgan Lewis, Stoel Rives, Hopkins Carley, Bursor Fisher, Stark & Stark, and others.
Case Studies
Patent Infringement
The patent holder was interested in analyzing the base station source code of several potential infringers. We worked with the already established claim chart to identify similar features in the source code and provided English language descriptions with citations of how and where the source code is exhibiting potentially infringing behavior. We also helped draft expert declarations.
Patent Portfolio Evaluation
A large communications equipment manufacturer was interested in understanding the value of their newly acquired patent portfolio. We analyzed the asset by categorizing the patents by area of invention, organized them into sub-areas and families, and identified potential targets for assertion. As a second step, we analyzed a specific set of patent families against a specific target. We were able to identify sets of assertable patents across several patent families, and assisted with creating initial claim charts.
Contributory Copyright Infringement
Our clients, the two largest bridalwear companies in the United States, complained that a cloud firewall provider enabled copycat manufacturers to commit copyright infringement by displaying our clients’ photographs. DMCA takedown notices were not possible to file, because the cloud firewall hid the infringers’ web servers. We helped interpret the DMCA and put it into technical context to make the complaint actionable.
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