Barr Group's software experts help lawyers better understand the technology at issue in copyright and trade secrets litigation so they can prevail in their cases. Our experts are experienced with software copyright litigation as well as related trade secret misappropriation cases in U.S. District Courts, Superior Court of California, and other venues.
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Software Copyright vs Trade Secret
Copyrights are critical legal protections for software inventions. The protected software could be a whole computer program, a user interface, a library, or even binary object code. Plaintiffs and defendants in copyright litigation turn to Barr Group for skilled experts to analyze the protected elements and compare them to the alleged infringing software.
Trade secrets are another form of intellectual property protection for software. Unlike patents and copyrights, trade secret misappropriation can only be found where the owner meets a legal standard such as the use of "reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy." Trade secrets are protected in different ways in different countries and--within the United States--also subject to the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) of 2016 and state laws including California Code of Civil Procedure §2019.210.
Litigation relating to software copyright infringement and trade secrets theft often begins when a former employee, contractor, or partner company builds a competing product or service. Barr Group's software experts have experience assisting in such cases.
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Copyright Expert Witness Services
Barr Group's software experts provide the following services to lawyers in copyright infringement and trade secrets theft cases:
- Identification of trade secrets
- Technical assistance with drafting of discovery requests
- Reverse engineering, including disassembly of binary code
- Source code reviews and comparisons
- Abstraction-filtration-comparison (AFC) testing
- Analysis of software structure-sequence-organization (SSO)
- Expert reports and declarations
- Testimony at deposition, hearings, and trials
Barr Group has a demonstrated ability to quickly activate one or more code reviewers to match the size, scope, and complexity of any project.