Computing firm builds strong case against global electronics company worth licensing revenue over $100 million

“The analyses provided by Chipworks exceeded our expectations. The company’s ability to strengthen our initial claim gave us the confidence to pursue a licensing program with an industry giant.”

                                                                                  - Senior Manager, IP Department, Microelectronics Company

Situation

A computing firm had pursued negotiations with a large electronics company that were unsuccessful. Realizing that it required substantially stronger evidence to build its case, the computing firm sought external expertise. After rejecting the work of several reverse engineering firms, the company turned to Chipworks to help strengthen its claim.

 
Challenges

• Find a supplier capable of performing a combination of circuit analysis and software reverse engineering
• Gain third party evidence that would stand up in negotiations with a company capable of employing the best lawyers in the world

 
Chipworks Solution

• Extracted data from a read protected portion of a commercial decoder, including chip de-layering, imaging, and circuit extraction to find key nodes; conducted microsurgery of many samples to read the target data
• Decompiled the target data as software
• Performed reverse engineering of the software driver interfacing with the commercial decoder to document evidence of infringement 

Results

• Delivered three claim charts to support potential licensing revenue over $100 million
• Found evidence of infringement in areas not initially identified by the client
• The client, confident of the results provided by Chipworks, is currently in litigation with the electronics company