Expert Consultant and Expert Witness Services

Dr. Sacerdoti is a highly effective expert witness and consultant supporting software litigation. He has served as a litigation consultant and/or expert witness in eight cases – five involving software patent litigation and three disputes regarding contractual issues concerning complex software products and professional services. His activities on these cases included patent claim analysis, prior art research, technical analysis of commercial software systems, assessment of performance under warranties, and assessment of performance to professional standards. He has been deposed for over 75 hours, served as a testifying expert at a jury trial and at hearings before Special Masters and arbitrators, prepared expert reports, prepared expert declarations, and provided advice and analysis.

The patent cases addressed these technologies:

  • Automated configuration of complex products
  • Expert system development tools
  • Expert systems and automated process control
  • Application servers and Web Services

Dr. Sacerdoti is an internationally known expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and has had a variety of roles in the software industry for 40 years. He can speak with technical authority about many advanced software technologies, and about many aspects of the commercial software business, including product design, product development, licensing and distribution agreements, quality assurance, professional service agreements, research and development, joint ventures, Small Business Innovation Research grants, and issues involved in founding, bootstrapping, and funding software businesses. His clients have included both major industry players such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Apple, Schlumberger, and Tandem, as well as many startups working in such areas as database management systems, data center management, audio conferencing, web metrics, interactive graphics, mobile services, knowledge engineering, and health care. He is the principal inventor of U.S. Patent 6,188,403 covering an interactive data graphics generator, and the inventor of U.S. Patent 6,222,540 covering an expert system for visualization – automatically generating data graphics from data. He is a co-inventor of U.S. Patent 6,954,728, which covers consumer-selected advertising, and of four other pending patents covering consumer-selected advertising, a monitoring and surveillance device configured as a light switch, and a system for ranking real estate parcels by their likelihood of selling in a given time period. He is the author of a book and over 20 papers and articles on a wide range of advanced software topics. He has lectured at the graduate level at many schools, including Stanford, University of Edinburgh, UC Berkeley, MIT, and Carnegie-Mellon. He has given invited presentations at numerous national and international conferences on such topics as expert systems, database management, problem solving, technology transfer, robotics, and the utility of AI technologies. He has presented tutorials at national and international conferences on technical, managerial, and architectural issues concerning AI software. He is effective at reducing complex concepts and technical distinctions to simple terms.

Contact us for enthusiastic references regarding this service.

Details about the cases:

  1. Trilogy Development Group v. Teknowledge Corporation (1995-6); N.D. California. I can’t find the case number without going through my off-site archive files, but I think you can find it referenced at 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13095 (N.D. Cal. 1996) which reports a summary judgment of invalidity of the patent in question.

I consulted for Morrison & Foerster as their sole expert. The litigation concerned infringement of a patent for automated configuration of complex products.

 

  1. DSC Communications et al. v. Trilogy Development Group (1999); 366th District Court of Collin County, Texas No. 366-581-97

I consulted for Haynes & Boone. The litigation concerned performance under contract of a professional services group of a configuration software vendor.

 

  1. Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. v. The Descartes Systems Group, Inc (1999); Case No. 50 T 00034 99 before the American Arbitration Assn.

I consulted for Haynes & Boone. The litigation concerned performance under contract of a product and associated services by a vendor of supply chain automation software.

 

  1. SAP America, Inc., and SAP Aktiengesellschaft v. Teknowledge Corporation (2000); Civil Action No. 99-667-GLS

I consulted for SAP, working with Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius as their sole expert. The litigation concerned infringement of several patents for expert systems development tools.

 

  1. Pavilion Technologies, Inc. v. Computer Associates International, Inc. (2002); United States District Court, Western Texas Division; Case number A 01CA 507 SS before a tutorial related to a Markman hearing.

I consulted for Heller, Ehrman, White, and McCaulliffe as one of three expert witnesses, with a primary focus on expert systems technologies as applied to manufacturing. The case concerned infringement of several patents concerning expert systems and automated process control.

 

  1. Software AG and Software AG, Inc. v. BEA Systems, Inc. (2004-5); United States District Court for the District of Delaware; Civil Action No. 03-739 GMS.

I consulted for Venable LLC as an expert witness regarding the market and technical environment for application servers and Web Services technologies. The litigation concerned infringement of a patent on object broker technology.

 

  1. Regional Income Tax Agency v. BearingPoint, Inc. (2005)

I consulted for Tucker Ellis and West LLC regarding professional practices in a consulting engagement to develop a web-based system for tracking tax payments. I interviewed the plaintiff’s technical team and reviewed key documents, then advised them from technical and business perspectives on which issues to pursue and the defendant’s likely responses to them.

 

  1. Versata Software Inc. v. Sun Microsystems Inc. (2008-9); 06cv358, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Marshall).

I consulted for Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom as an expert witness on invalidity and inequitable conduct regarding three patents concerning automated configuration of computer systems. I reviewed prior art, relevant license agreements, and source code (in C, C++, and Nexpert Object), prepared expert reports, was deposed, and testified before the jury at trial.

 

 

Activity by case

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Prepared expert reports and/or declarations

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Was deposed

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x

 

x

Testified before Arbitrator or Special Master

 

 

x

 

x

 

 

 

Testified before jury

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

x

 

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