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
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