LOS
ANGELES, May 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A jury
delivered a $242M verdict on
Friday, May 10, in favor of plaintiff
IPA Technologies in a federal patent infringement lawsuit against
Microsoft. The jury found that Microsoft's Cortana virtual
assistant infringed a patented invention conceived in the late 90's
by researchers at SRI International, a nonprofit spinoff of
Stanford University. Quandary Peak
Research, a software analysis firm based in Los Angeles, analyzed Cortana's source code on
behalf of IPA. At trial, Quandary Peak's analysis and findings
featured heavily in the testimony of IPA's infringement expert, Dr.
Nenad Medvidovic.
The patent claims at issue in the case, IPA Technologies
Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, involved methods for using
"autonomous electronic agents" for "cooperative task completion."
Various elements of the patented methods relate to the system's
internal design, and a look under the hood at Cortana's proprietary
and confidential source code was necessary to determine whether
Cortana included those design elements. Two source code analysis
experts from Quandary Peak, Drs. George
Edwards and Jae Young Bang,
collaborated closely with Medvidovic over a period of several years
to analyze Cortana's source code in detail.
On the third day of the one-week trial, Medvidovic took the
stand to explain his infringement opinions to the jury. Medvidovic
opined that Microsoft infringed three claims of U.S. Patent No.
7,069,560, also known as the '560 Patent. In his testimony,
Medvidovic noted the essential role the source code analysis played
in establishing Microsoft's infringement. Medvidovic specifically
credited Quandary Peak's work on the case and described Edwards and
Bang as "brilliant" source code analysts.
Medvidovic also used Quandary Peak's analysis to rebut
Microsoft's arguments. In particular, Microsoft's legal team and
experts advanced a theory that Microsoft did not infringe the
asserted claims because Cortana did not receive a service request
"adhering to an interagent communication language," or ICL, which
is a required element of the invention claimed in the '560 Patent.
Microsoft argued that the service request received by Cortana was
not recited in an ICL. However, Medvidovic explained to the jury
that based on the source code identified by Quandary Peak,
Cortana's service request was recited in an ICL because it adhered
to a particular set of structural rules and included parameters
consistent with the '560 Patent's written description.
A second non-infringement argument advanced by Microsoft was
that the alleged agents within Cortana, which were
known internally at Microsoft as "skills," were not autonomous as
required by the '560 Patent. Microsoft called witnesses who
testified that Cortana's skills were not autonomous because they
were dependent on an internal component of Cortana known as Cortex.
To rebut Microsoft's assertion, Medvidovic again relied on
technical documents and source code evidence unearthed by Quandary
Peak's experts, Edwards and Bang. Medvidovic used that evidence to
support his opinion that Cortana's skills met the patent's
definition of autonomous agents, as that term would have been
understood by a person of ordinary skill in the field at the time
of the invention in 1999.
Under applicable U.S. law, the lifespan of the '560 Patent was
20 years from its first disclosure to the U.S. Patent Office. As a
result, the '560 Patent expired in January
2019. The time period at issue in the trial was the
five-year interval between Cortana's first public release in 2014
and the patent's expiration in 2019. During that time, users
accessed Cortana from phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop
computers running the Windows 10 operating system. Because the
patent has now expired, there is no possibility of ongoing
infringement, and the trial was solely focused on whether Microsoft
owed damages for past infringement.
Dr. George Edwards, who is
Quandary Peak's President and Principal Computer Scientist, is an
expert in software and source code analysis, having worked on
scores of intellectual property lawsuits. His expertise and source
code analysis skills are generally applicable to all types of
software, including mobile apps, websites, digital media, embedded
systems, enterprise architectures, and databases. Edwards received
his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Southern California in 2010.
Fittingly, his Ph.D. research focused on software analysis methods
and tools, and he later leveraged that expertise by going on to
co-found Quandary Peak in 2012. Since then, Edwards has mentored
numerous other aspiring software analysis experts, led teams of
experts through highly complex and rigorous code inspections, and
testified as an expert witness in computer science, software
engineering, and software analysis.
Dr. Jae Young Bang joined
Quandary Peak in 2019. As Director of Software Development, Bang
leads the development of Quandary Peak's software analysis tools,
such as the Simian Similarity Analyzer. As a Senior Computer
Scientist, he has reverse-engineered and analyzed software designs
in a variety of complex, real-world systems. Bang also holds a
position on the faculty at the University of
Southern California (USC), where
he teaches graduate-level software engineering classes. Prior to
joining Quandary Peak, Bang worked as a software engineer at Kakao,
where he developed Kakao's user identity platform for over 100
million users of services such as the messaging app KakaoTalk. Bang
received his Ph.D. in computer science from USC in 2015. Within the broad field of computer
science, his specific areas of expertise encompass software
engineering, distributed systems, software architecture, software
analysis, computer programming, mobile device software, and
Internet software. He has direct experience building and analyzing
software applications and Internet services.
About Quandary Peak Research
Quandary Peak Research
provides expert analysis of complex technology to companies, law
firms, and investors. Quandary Peak's clients utilize their
computer and software expertise in different types of civil
litigation, including cases alleging patent infringement, copyright
infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and
breach-of-contract, among others. Software experts at Quandary Peak
perform source code analysis, technical due diligence, software
quality audits, and forensic investigations. Quandary Peak experts
also testify as expert witnesses at hearings and trials in U.S.
District Court, state courts, the International Trade Commission
(ITC), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and other
venues.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Jeremiah Deasey
Manager of
Digital Marketing, Media, and Brand
jeremiah@quandarypeak.com
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SOURCE Quandary Peak Research