Avant! claims support in Cadence case

Electronic News, July 8, 1996

San Jose--Avant! Corp. claimed experts found a complete lack of technical evidence in Cadence Design Systems' lawsuit against it. The company said court papers stated no copyright infringement or trade secret misappropriation, with experts confirming no Avant! product violated any Cadence copyright or contained any Cadence trade secret. All this is according to court papers filed by Avant! in opposition to Cadence's motion for a preliminary injunction.

Avant!'s papers rely on admissions Cadence's experts made under cross-examination and on the detailed findings of nationally recognized experts testifying on Avant!'s behalf.

"Avant! has been waiting for months to respond in court to Cadence's accusations," said an Avant! representative. "Hard evidence, from Cadence's experts as well as Avant!'s, now confirms that Cadence has resorted to baseless litigation because it cannot compete with Avant! in the marketplace."

Cadence called Avant!'s response predictable. "The surprise was that Avant! didn't address the majority of the allegations in our lawsuit," said a Cadence spokesperson. "Another surprise was Avant! came out and admitted it had used our software in its products, which is the core of our lawsuit. Whether it was a trade secret or not, the bottom line is Avant! used our software without our permission and illegally."

Avant!'s court filing states the only source code similarities Cadence's experts identified were low-level code from old database, graphic utilities and related software, not Avant!'s place-and-route code. This low-level code, said Avant!, is covered by a 1994 settlement agreement releasing all Cadence claims against Avant!. However, to avoid any dispute Avant! recently removed the code from its products through a "clean room" process.

"The removal of some of the code in question from Avant!'s software in its new release is backpeddling to confuse people," said Cadence's spokesperson. "Why would Avant! do this if it wasn't in the wrong? But ultimately it is up to the courts to decide."

Avant! also said experts from both companies confirmed no Avant! product uses code linked to former Cadence employee Mitsuru Igusa, alleged to have taken code from Cadence. Avant! went on to accuse Cadence of relying on allegations that Mr. Igusa engaged in industrial espionage to compensate for Cadence's lack of technical evidence.

The papers filed by Avant! are currently under seal until confidentiality issues are resolved, but will be available in the near future at the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.

Criminal charges brought by Cadence against Avant! are still under investigation. "There was quite a lot of data seized in the Avant! case," explained John C. Smith of the district attorney's computer crime/high tech division in San Jose. "We are still going through it."