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Patent Expert Witness Experience

S Systems, Inc. is an established digital signal processing consulting firm specializing in software, especially hand-coded assembler for DSP (signal processing) and embedded chips, mostly in the audio and music industries.

John Strawn, Ph.D. (the founder of S Systems, Inc.) is available as a testifying expert witness in patent litigation. He brings to the table testifying experience as well as a few decades of experience in software, translation, digital audio and music. He has access to good university libraries as well as offering a private archive from the early days of digital audio, digital audio compression (like MP-3), and computer music. He brings extensive contacts in the field of digital audio and music as well.

Since he established S Systems, Inc., Dr. Strawn has been involved in the following cases. You can view the rest of Dr. Strawn's resume online or download Dr. Strawn's resume as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file which contains this list.

Date:

2009

Law firm: Weil Gotschal, Redwood Shores, CA
 

Case:

In the Matter of Certain Digital Cameras, ITC 337-TA-671.

 

Project:

Analyze cell phone source code relating to digital cameras. This involved baseband chips from Qualcomm, Philips, Agere, Texas Instruments; register-level code for camera image sensors from Samsung, Sony, Micron, Omnivision; Windows Mobile 5 and 6 digital camera device drivers; Qualcomm BREW 2 and BREW 3 cell phone operating systems; patents involving digital cameras, Bayer subsampling, and pixel interpolation; and standard digital optical concepts such as RGB, YUV, YCbCr, EXIF, and JPEG.

 

Status:

My work completed, July 2009.

Date:

2008 - 2009

Law firm: Sidley Austin, Chicago
 

Case

Undisclosed

 

Project:

Analyze C/C++ source code for defendant in patent action involving Internet-based multimedia file downloading system running in Windows. Worked with multiple versions of client and server code contained in more than 60,000 files occupying more than 3 GByte disk space.

 

Status:

Plaintiff dismissed action, 2009.

Date:

2007 - 2008

Law firm: Fish and Richardson, Atlanta
 

Case

Nice Systems Inc. and Nice Systems Ltd. v. Witness Systems Inc. Civil Action No. 06-311-JJF, Delaware District.

 

Project:

Testifying expert for the defense involving telephony, software, hardware architecture, digital recording. Prepare claim charts, expert reports. Deposed January 2008. Testified at one-week trial, Wilmington, DE, January 2008.

 

Status:

Hung jury. Settled at terms favorable to my client, August 2008.

Date:

2005 - 2007

Law firm: Fish and Richardson, San Diego
 

Case

Lucent Technologies Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., et al., and Microsoft Corporation, Intervener. Case No. 02-CV-2060 B (CAB) consolidated with 03-CV-0699 B (CAB) and 03-CV-1108 B (CAB).

 

Project:

Testifying expert for Microsoft (defendant) involving audio compression and MP3. Prepared 8 expert reports (total 331 pages) on non-infringement and invalidity including 20 claim charts and 15 other substantive attachments. Analyzed over 4000 pages of C/C++ source code; analysis of assembly and machine code. Worked directly with German documents. Deposed, November 3 2006. Two days testimony at three-week jury trial, February 7-8, 2007. Wikipedia entry on this case.

 

Status:

Judge Brewster overturned jury decision and ruled in favor of defense. Judge Brewster's decision upheld on appeal , September 2008.

Date:

2007

Law firm: Morrison and Foerster, Los Angeles
 

Case

3:06-cv-7736 CA Northern District, Seer Systems v. Yamaha.

 

Project:

Prior art research; documents from my own files; commentary on prior art found by me and by attorneys; meetings with attorneys and their client in Los Angeles.

 

Status:

Settled before trial at terms favorable to my client.

Date:

2006 - 2007

Law firm: Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, Houston, TX
 

Case

2:06-cv-156, Digital Technology Licensing (DTL) v. Cingular Wireless.

 

Project:

Prepare claim charts, technology background. Two-day meeting with attorney in Palo Alto.               

 

Status:

Case settled on terms favorable to client.

Date:

2007

Law firm: Meyer and Associates Co. LPA, Columbus, Ohio
 

Case

Health Science Products LLC and Kairos & Associates, In., v. Sage Software SB, Inc.

 

Project:

For class action litigation, analyze functionality of database software before and after release of ACT 2005 (Version 7.0). Analyze software using databases provided by plaintiffs.

 

Status:

Settled, payments to affected parties in progress 2008.

Date:

2005 - 2006

Law firm: Black Lowe & Graham, Seattle
 

Case

Digeo, Inc. v. Audible, Inc., Case No. C05-00464-JLR, Seattle

 

Project:

Named expert for plaintiff. Prepare expert reports. Deposed for Markman hearing, February 2006.

 

Status:

Appeal in progress, March 2007.

Date:

2006

Law firm: Ropes and Gray, Palo Alto
 

Case

MediaTek, ASUSTek & ASUS v. Sanyo

 

Project:

Prepare claim charts on 24 hour notice. Assist in preparation of tutorial.                                           

 

Status:

Settled, terms unknown. My involvement was limited due to schedule conflicts with previous clients.

Date:

2006-

Law firm: Ropes and Gray, Palo Alto
 

Case

Undisclosed to me

 

Project:

Teach technology relating to audio to attorneys; draft claim charts.

 

Status:

Case resolved, terms unknown to me.      

Date:

2004 - 2005

Law firm: Wilmer Hale (New York)
 

Case

Information Technology Innovation, LLC v. Motorola, Inc. et al., Northern District of Illinois 04-C-7121.

 

Project:

Provide and supervise an expert witness colleague who prepared an expert report on infringement.

 

Status:

Settled.

Date:

2004 - 2005

Law firm: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, New York office
 

Case

Antor Media Corporation v. Apple Computer, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, RealNetworks, Inc., Civil Action No. 2:03CV320 (E.D. Texas 2004)

 

Project:

Retained on behalf of Microsoft as a prior art consultant for litigation involving file downloading.

 

Status:

Settled on terms favorable to my client, early 2005.

Date:

2003

Law firm: Dechert
 

Case

Opposed to Lucent; Decert's client not disclosed to me

 

Project:

Read six articles and two Ph.D. dissertations, all in German, on audio compression, scanning for (and finding) specific prior art as directed by attorney.

 

Status:

My involvement concluded in 2003, status unknown.

Date:

2003

Law firm: Undisclosed
 

Case

undisclosed

 

Project:

For a well-known manufacturer of digital hardware, investigate prior art for hardware relating to patents on virtual memory and cache memory. In addition to library work, provide information from my own files, and gain access to files at private Bay-area institutions.

 

Status:

Settled on terms favorable to my client, 2005

Date:

2005

Law firm: Trop, Pruner & Hu, Austin, TX
 

Project:

Provide prior art involving signal processors.

 

Status:

My work completed, 2005.

Date:

1997 - 1998

Law firm: Cesari and McKenna, Boston
 

Case

Lucent (plaintiff) vs. Young Chang

 

Project:

Served on the expert witness team helping defend a major music instrument manufacturer against a patent violation lawsuit relating to music synthesis. I advised attorneys about digital hardware, software, and architecture. I obtained obscure historical documents and information from various public and private sources. I provided provide personal archives from the 1970's, and I helped the attorneys find other expert witnesses for the team.

 

Status:

Settled on terms favorable to my client, 1998.

Date:

1996

Client: Undisclosed
 

Case

Undisclosed

 

Project:

For a major karaoke manufacturer outside the USA, I conducted prior art research which helped the company successfully fend off patent violation actions in the area of digital graphics.

 

Status:

Settled on terms favorable to my client, 1996

Date:

1995

Client: Creative Labs
 

Case

Undisclosed to me.

 

Project:

For this well-known manufacturer, I conducted prior art research and prepared a claim chart in the area of music synthesis, especially reverberation. This also included manuals for custom music synthesizers, from my own library.

 

Status:

Settled, terms unknown, 1995

Date:

1994

Client: Undisclosed
 

Case

Undisclosed

 

Project:

For the same major karaoke manufacturer outside the USA as above, I conducted prior art research which helped the company successfully fend off patent violation actions in the area of digital music synthesis, specifically chorus in karaoke background using MIDI and sampling synthesis. I used contacts in the Bay area to find manuals for hardware prior art for which the manufacturer had gone out of business.

 

Status:

Settled on terms favorable to my client, 1994

Date:

1994

Law firm:Small, Larkin, Los Angeles
 

Case

Digital Theatre Systems vs. L.C. Concepts (plaintiff)

 

Project:

For this well-known manufacturer of cinema sound equipment, I participated in the successful resolution of a patent infringement action. I studied and commented on patents and correspondence in English and German. I met with German- and English-speaking corporate and engineering staff in the Bay Area and Las Vegas. Through personal contacts in German-speaking areas in Europe, I located prior art hardware in various private firms.

 

Status:

Settled on terms favorable to my client, 1994

When Dr. Strawn was manager of an R&D group for Yamaha (more details in his on-line resume), his group was trained by a crack patent attorney on the theory and practice of obtaining patents. The group was awarded several patents:

5,245,130 1993 Polyphonic breath controlled electronic musical instrument
5,288,938 1994 Method and apparatus for controlling electronic tone generation in accordance with a detected type of performance gesture
5,386,568 1995 Apparatus and method for linking software modules
5,422,956 1995 Sound parameter controller for use with a microphone
5,536,902 1996 Method of and apparatus for analyzing and synthesizing a sound by extracting and controlling a sound parameter
5,541,358 1996 Position-based controller for electronic musical instrument

In addition Dr. Strawn was co-inventor on this patent involving micromachining:

5,569,871 1996 Musical tone generating apparatus employing microresonator array                                                                                

For more information on Dr. Strawn's background, see his on-line resume. For more information on his litigation support work, contact (Dr.) John Strawn .


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