MathWorks v. National Instruments Patent Case UC Berkeley CET Patent Engineering -IEOR 190G Spring 2009 Samuel Choi

 In 1990’s, there were 2 simulation languages available.  One was Mathworks’ Matlab and Simulink and the other was MatrixX  MatrixX supported most of the simulation software to Department of Defense (DOD)  Mathworks bought a company developed MatrixX  DOD teamed up with National Instrument and sued Matworks for Anti-trust thinking that it would be monopoly and DOD might not get MatrixX support if Mathworks owns MatrixX.  Mathworks lost.  National Instrument owns MatrixX, and along with it, some patents. Background

 Developer of technical computing software  MATLAB and Simulink. About The MathWorks

 Virtual instrumentation For productivity and lowers costs for custome rs  easy-to-integrate software  LabVIEW graphical development environment, and mo dular hardware About National Instruments

NI LabVIEW

 For infringement of its patented method of creating data flow diagrams.  The U.S. District Court for the Eastern Dis trict of Texas entered a judgment in the pa tent suit brought by National Instruments (NI) against The MathWorks. National Instruments (NI) sued

January 2003 Federal Circuit: National Instruments v.s. MathWorks

 Decision Affirms Jury Verdict in Favor of NI Findi ng Infringement by Simulink and Related Product s  MathWorks knew about the patent since they once owned it when they bought MatrixX.  MathWorks did not argued to fight back.  U.S. Patent Nos. 4,901,221 4,914,568 5,301,336 A fourth patent, No. 5,291,587, was found valid but not infringed. Decision Affirms

 Relate to NI LabVIEW software, which contains major innovations in programming design tools.  The jury also awarded National Instruments $3.5 million damages  Forbid the sale of MathWorks Simulink Decision Affirms

 11/19/2003  new LabVIEW Math Interface Toolkit  adds the LabVIEW user interface to the Simulink environment. to instrument and verify their control models. The toolkit gives The MathWorks, Inc. custom ers a licensed manner to control and view Simulink data under these National Instrume nts patents NI takes control

 Oct. 14, 2004 MathWorks, Inc. is prohibited from manufact uring and shipping of previous Simulink(R).  September 2004 Modified Simulink(R) then initiated litigation to clear possible infringement by the modified version service pack (R14SP1) MathWorks listens

 begins on new version of Simulink  January 5, 2005  Court concluded that The MathWorks' mo dified version of Simulink(R) presents sub stantial issues with respect to infringemen t that should be decided by trial. Patent infringement trial