Clean Room Defense
MacPherson was credited with pioneering the "clean room" defense when he represented NEC in an IP lawsuit against Intel in the early 1980s. In the suit, Intel alleged that NEC stole and infringed its programming in its microprocessors, or "microcode". To rebut this accusation, MacPherson gave an independent engineer the task of programming an IC (Integrated Circuit) to do the same thing as the NEC and Intel Chips, but cutting off all access to any previously written microcode - in other words, simulating clean room conditions. After the engineer completed the task, experts concluded that the similarities between the microcode was not because of copying but due to the intrinsic constraints of programming microcode.
Read more about this topic: Alan Mac Pherson
Famous quotes containing the words clean, room and/or defense:
“Because humans are not alone in exhibiting such behavior—bees stockpile royal jelly, birds feather their nests, mice shred paper—it’s possible that a pregnant woman who scrubs her house from floor to ceiling [just before her baby is born] is responding to a biological imperative . . . . Of course there are those who believe that . . . the burst of energy that propels a pregnant woman to clean her house is a perfectly natural response to their mother’s impending visit.”
—Mary Arrigo (20th century)
“There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Of all my Russian books, The Defense contains and diffuses the greatest “warmth”Mwhich may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract chess is supposed to be.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)