Intellectual Property Copyrights Expert Witnesses

Ian Allport, principal at Radical Software & Consulting Inc., has over 30 years of experience in the Financial Services and Information Technology industry.

Background Experience - For over 25 years Mr. Allport worked in various roles in the financial services industry. He has experience in developing applications for many business types and has operated at many different levels of responsibility including project management, application design, and programming. In those roles, he provided technology solutions and was intimately involved in the creation of new business platforms. At all times, Mr. Allport has been strongly aligned with the business operations in companies.

Litigation Support - Since 2000, Mr. Allport has provided litigation services for legal firms throughout the United States and Canada in the area of infringement of intellectual property, namely: Patents, Copyrights, and Theft of Intellectual Property. His cases have included subject matter related to:

• Financial Service Applications
• Health Care Services
• Medication Dispensing Software
• ATM and Point of Sale Transaction Processing
• Check Image Processing

Areas of Expertise:

Patents - Ian Allport has extensive experience in automated trading, including algorithmic and high frequency technology. These skills have been utilized on cases including Reuters vs. Bloomberg, LLC in a patent infringement litigation and a case of potential patent infringement involving automated execution platforms. Mr. Allport creates and examines claim charts, provides input to attorneys evaluating the validity of a patent, and performs detailed code and processing analysis of an application that potentially violate a patent.

Copyrights - To determine if a copyright has been violated, Mr. Allport utilizes analytical skills including abstraction, filtration and comparison, standards of substantially similar, look and feel protection, virtually identical analysis, and a detailed examination of the processes used in conjunction with the potential violating application. These tasks culminate in a report detailing whether or not the copyright was violated and, if so, the manner in which it was done including the use of copyright case history to highlight how conclusions were drawn.

Theft of Intellectual Property - Mr. Allport examines motives, defendant skill sets, opportunity, and the systems in question to determine if IP theft has occurred. Extensive reports are created based on his findings.

FORENSIC EXPERT WITNESS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Professor Jeff Sedlik has decades of experience at the highest level of professional photography including advertising, corporate, editorial and stock. He is a respected and acknowledged authority on photography having served as Past National President of professional photography's leading trade organization,  "Advertising Photographers of America". Professor Sedlik is also an experienced Expert Witness. 

Areas of Expertise:

Contracts Copyright Licensing Publicity Rights Model Releases

Lost/Damaged Film Stock Photography Business Practices Forensic Scene Recreation Forensic Image Analysis

Gabriele Goldaper has over 45 years experience in the Fashion, Garment, Textile Industry, as a retailer, manufacturer, consultant, and college instructor. Ms. Goldaper is a perceptive and articulate Expert Witness who has been involved in more than150+ Apparel Industry Legal Disputes. She has been deposed and testified in bench and jury trials and arbitrations, for both defendants and plaintiffs.

Ms. Goldaper has owned her own clothing manufacturing company and has held key executive positions in major public and private companies in Southern California. She has been a Management Consultant to over 200 new, failing or growing apparel companies, and completed assignments for USAID in Romania, Egypt, El Salvador, Moscow, Thailand and Bulgaria as an apparel expert.

Ms. Goldaper is a 30-year member of the faculty at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

Areas of Expertise Include:

• Copyright Infringement and Trademark Cases
• Opinions on Originality and Substantial Similarity
• Fabric/Print Design, and Origin Issues
• Garment Construction and Design issues
• Customs, Practices and Operations of Clothing Business
• Financial Conditions, Valuations and Financial Matters
• Issues with Manufacturing Contractors/Factories: Domestic and Off-Shore
• Wholesale Distribution to Retailers and Internet Sales
• Quality Standards/Specifications used in Production of Garments

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Michael Nranian, JD, MBA, MS has over 30 years experience focusing in Product Development, Intellectual Property, Patent Litigation, Legal and Technical Compliance, and Product Liability Litigation. He is a licensed attorney in Michigan, Texas, & the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Nranian is a Six Sigma Black Belt, Professional Engineer, & Certified Project Management Professional. He has an in-depth background and education in Law, IP, Electrical, Chemical & Computer Engineering, & Business. He has testified extensively as an expert witness in depositions, hearings, and trials in state & federal courts.

Mr. Nranian conducts Product and Technology Analysis, Patentability & Prior Art Research,and provides Technology & Litigation Support for Intellectual Property. His litigation background includes patent infringement / non-infringement under literal infringement and the doctrine of equivalents, patent validity / invalidity, prior art, & file-wrapper estoppel, for both ITC and Federal cases, including Inter Partes reviews. He conducts analysis of patents and products, prepares claim charts, & expert witness reports. This includes testimony and document preparation for cases before state, and federal court jurisdictions, and the International Trade Commission and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Mr. Nranian is thoroughly familiar with all 101, 102, 103, 112, and other enablement and prior art arguments. His experience includes Technology Standards Boards and Licensing Authorities, Antitrust / DOJ, Technology Development and Transfer, Patents, Trademarks, Trade Secrets, and Copyrights, Licensing, Unfair Competition/Trade, False/Deceptive Advertising, & Lanham Act Actions, & Class Actions.

His Product Liability Expert Witness litigation background includes all types of Safety Systems, Electrical Systems, Fires, Accident Reconstruction, and Evaluation of Alternative Designs for Automotive, Medical and other industries. He has over 29 years of experience in Automotive Safety Systems, Sensors, Seatbelts, Airbags / Curtains, Seats, Diagnostic Systems, Crash Recorders, Crash Pulse Analysis, System Diagnostic, Fault Codes, Structure (including roof-crush and door) and front, side & roll-over systems (including sensing and algorithm development) for domestic and international corporations. He is thoroughly familiar with all regulatory (including FMVSS), and corporate due-care requirements, & preemption arguments, occupant kinematics, & injury causation.

John Peck has over 25 years of experience as a Software and Hardware Engineer, with over 7 years of experience as a technical analyst for hardware and software Intellectual Property matters. Through his experience as an inventor, he has been granted 10 United States patents.  Background Experience: Mr. Peck's prior hardware engineering experience includes system architecture, digital design, design verification, design methodology automation, FPGAs, ASICs, and complex SoCs using in IoT applications such as smart power meters. He also has a solid background in software engineering, including video game development, firmware, EDA tools, and system validation environments.

Litigation Support: Mr. Peck has drafted numerous claim charts and prepared expert reports for software copyright, trade secret, and patent litigation. Representing attorneys for plaintiff and defendant, he is comfortable researching and expressing complex technical issues.

Ideal clients are attorneys who need to understand how complex systems operate on the basis of produced source code. Mr. Peck is able to rapidly understand complex technical systems, identify gaps in source code productions, and explain their operation in a way that most people can understand. His work products are highly detailed in their description of system operation, source code references, and claim mapping.

To date, Mr. Peck has consulted on a total of 19 cases.

• Consultant and analyst for multiple ITC 337 investigations
• Software source code analysis for litigation including alleged copyright violation and trade secret theft
• Hardware HDL/RTL source code and schematic analysis for litigation matters including patent infringement
• Patent evidence of use
• Reverse engineering of software on mobile, desktop, and server platforms
• Performed software and hardware IP analysis and composed expert reports regarding patents, trade secrets, and copyright matters
• Ran CodeSuite® and analyzed software source code correlations
• Reviewed client portfolio patents to determine likelihood of infringing use based on publicly available information
• Developed source code comparison and analysis tools

Education: 

• MS, Computer Science,  University of California, Los Angeles
• BS, Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

Please visit  John Peck's LinkedIn Profile for more detail.

View Bay2Sierra Silicon Services, Inc.'s Consulting Profile.

Rob Wallace has unique expertise in Trademark, Trade Dress, Copyright, Brand Identity and Package Design Infringement. For 35+ years, Rob ran one of the nation's top Brand Identity Strategy and Package Design Resources providing global branding expertise to Fortune 500 companies in virtually all CPG categories. His clients include P&G, Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever, Kraft, Colgate, The Home Depot, Brown-Foreman, Novartis, J&J and more than 50 market leading companies. Manhattan-based, Rob has been an expert witness for important litigation involving:

• Likelihood of Consumer Confusion
• Secondary Meaning
• Brand Valuation & Dilution
• Package Graphic/Structural Design
• Product Design
• Branding Industry Best Practices
• False/ Deceptive Advertising
• Corrective Advertising
• and all brand related issues.

Rob has commissioned literally hundreds of consumer surveys and is uniquely qualified to determine the results of all research. He has worked for attorneys on both the plaintiff and defense sides of his cases. He is effective and efficient with the average project report requiring between 10 and 12 hours.

Dr. Larry Chiagouris has a rare combination serving as a senior Fortune 500 executive and as an accomplished academician. He has provided expert testimony and written opinions on damages, marketing, advertising, intellectual property issues (including the use of survey research) for plaintiffs & defendants at major national & local firms.

Experience summary:

• Experience evenly divided between plaintiff and defendant engagements over 25 cases

• Several cases include elements of intellectual property issues

• Majority of cases involve elements of consumer behavior or survey research

• Majority of cases involve elements of advertising related strategies and tactics

• Majority of cases involve elements of Internet related tactics

• Majority of cases involve written opinions and depositions

• Written and oral testimony in several Federal District Court jurisdictions

• Engaged by both large multinational law firms and small boutique firms

• Class action cases evenly divided between plaintiffs and defendants

Selected by Agency Magazine as one of 10 best and brightest researchers. He brings extensive experience as a Senior Marketing, Branding and Research Executive responsible for directing major assignments for companies such as AT&T, Campbell Soup, Kraft, Miller Brewing, Peugeot, Pfizer, Prudential and Visa.

He has a Ph.D. in Marketing, is Past Chairman, Advertising Research Foundation and Former Director of the American Marketing Association.

Brooks Hilliard, CMC, CCP is the only actively practicing expert witness in the world who is both a Certified Management Consultant and a Certified Computing Professional specializing in computer system selection and problem resolution. He has testified more than 30 times as a computer expert witness and has been engaged on more than 90 such matters for both plaintiffs and defendants. Mr. Hillard has done expert witness and consulting assignments in 25 states, and has qualified as an expert witness on computer software and hardware (including ERP, SCM and CRM systems) in both state and federal litigation. His expert witness engagements have included courtroom and deposition testimony in lawsuits, arbitrations, mediations and formal governmental hearings. 

Areas of Expertise:

• Allegations of ERP and CRM system failures and/or defective business software/systems
• Computer Forensics
• Intellectual property
• Valuation of computer hardware, software and services
• Regulatory, Procurement and Tax matters

David Crowe has worked in the Telecommunications / Wireless Communications industry for almost 35 years. Internationally renown, he was lead software designer on an early cellular switch, and went on to develop industry standards for core networks, emergency services, smart cards, security, location services, international roaming, numbering systems and more. He continues to make technical contributions, and has received several awards for his work.

Mr. Crowe has consulted for leading telecom organizations including Alcatel, ATIS, AT&T Wireless, Compaq, CTIA, HP, Neustar, Qualcomm, Telcordia, Rural Cellular Association, Syniverse, and TIA.  He has extensive experience in the development and implementation of wireless telecom standards, telecom protocols and also in real-time software development, particularly software related to wireless telecommunications. 

Litigation Support - As an expert witness, David Crowe has testified in a variety of environments, from District Court in Chicago to County Court in Maryland to Federal Court in Australia, working in cases covering patents, other intellectual property, and business disputes. He is currently serving as an Expert Witness in US, Canadian, and Australian courts. Mr. Crowe's  writing and debating skills are a big advantage both for testifying, and for report writing. 

 Areas of Expertise:

Telecommunications Wireless Technology Numbering / Number Portability / Priority Calling Device Identifiers  Software Core Networks Emergency Communication Services / 911

Radio Interface Protocols Smart Cards GPS Location Services Roaming / International Roaming Safety Telecom Patent Infringement

View David R. Crowe's Consulting Profile.

Durand R. Begault received a PhD in Computer Audio from UC San Diego in 1988 and an MFA from Mills College in 1981. He has been associated with the Audio Forensic Center and Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc. since 1996 and has worked as an expert witness, legal consultant, and acoustical consultant on a variety of audio-related cases since 1988. Dr. Begault also holds a research position at NASA Ames Research Center and is an adjunct faculty member at McGill University. He is the author of several U.S. patents and is qualified as an expert witness in both Federal and State Courts. Dr. Begault has testified in over 40 cases on a variety of audio technology and forensic audio-related cases.

Areas of Expertise:

• Audio Technology Patent / Intellectual Property Analyses
• Forensic Audio and Video Tape Examination / Authentication
• Analysis of Speech, Alarms, Warning Signal Audibility
• Voice Identification and Elimination
• Analysis of ‘Ear Witness’ Testimony
• Enhancement of Speech from Noisy Audio / Video Tape Recordings
• Music Copyright Infringement and Musicological Analysis
• Gunshots
• Acoustical Test and Measurement - Environmental Sound
• Noise Exposure
• Software / Hardware Black Box Testing for Infringement
• Videotape Image Enhancement
• Analysis of Digital Recordings

Please contact the Marketing Department at Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc./Audio Forensic Center for Dr. Begault’s current CV.

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Howard J. Cohen, PhD, has over 30 years of experience in Software Engineering, Architecture and Implementation. He possesses particular expertise in Algorithms, Relational Databases, Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and Software Applications in general. His experience has been in a broad spectrum of technology, in several languages, in a wide variety of applications, and on multiple platforms. Dr. Cohen's background includes Electronic Design Automation, Bioinformatics, Digital Cartography, Banking Systems for Foreign Exchange Traders, and many more. He is the co-inventor on approximately 120 patents.

Dr. Cohen has over 15 years of experience as an Expert Witness. He possesses excellent written and verbal communications skills, including the ability to express himself well in interpersonal contacts, make presentations to large audiences, explain complex concepts clearly, and write well on levels ranging from the scientific to end user documentation. He is available to analyze complex systems, to write clearly about technical issues, and communicate face-to-face in a manner appropriate for any audience to understand the issues, the technology and the point of view. Dr. Cohen has been deposed and testified at arbitration hearings and in Federal Court.

Expert Witness Projects Include:

• Trade Secrets
• Copyright
• DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• Patent Infringement
• Source Code Analysis
• Business Practices
• Damages Analysis
• Computer Software Security / Forensics

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Oded Gottesman, PhD, CTO of Compandent Inc., technology IP expert witness in such areas as telecommunications, cellular phone, and signal processing, provides technology expert witness services, prior art search, and consulting for Technology Patent Infringement, Patent Invalidity, Trade Secret Disputes, source code review, hardware analysis, and related matters. Dr. Gottesman has more than 17 years of experience as an expert witness, deposed 14 times, testified 4 times in Jury trial and 2 times in ITC trial, worked on IPR and Ex Parte Reexamination petitions, and wrote numerous reports. Among his areas of expertise are:

DSP Digital Signal Processing Telecommunications Cellular Networks (4G LTE, 3GPP, GSM) Packetized Networks VoIP Streaming audio, streaming video Real-time Systems Cellular Timing and Synchronization Location and Position Systems (UTDOA, GPS, etc.) Error Control Coding

Speech Coding, voice compression, vocoder, Audio Compression, and Video Compression, codec (MPEG, AAC, AMR) Signal Compression and Signal Enhancement Computer Software, and Algorithms Computer Hardware Embedded Systems Smartphones, Portable Devices Client-server Web Applications Mobile Applications

Litigation Support - Dr. Gottesman has more than 17 years of experience as an expert witness, deposed 14 times, testified 4 times in Jury trial and 2 times in ITC trial, worked on IPR and Ex Parte Reexamination petitions, and wrote numerous reports.

Selected Clients - Dr. Gottesman's clients have included: Alston & Bird, AZA Law, BakerHostetler, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, Comcast, Cooley Godward Kronish, Cummins, Dechert, Echelon, Fenwick & West, Fish & Richardson, Google, Hill Kertscher & Wharton, Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, Weir & Partners, Woodcock & Washburn, MagicJack, Microsoft, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, Nokia, Parts Geek, Samsung, Toshiba, TruePosition, Vinson & Elkins LLP, Wiav, and Williams & Connolly LLP.

View Dr. Gottesman's Consulting Profile.

Reasoning, Inc. provides expert testimony for trademarks, defamation, authorship attribution, and communicative malpractice related to faulty tests and surveys. Reasoning is a group of doctoral-level linguists and logicians with superior understanding of all aspects of language. We do linguistic and logical analyses of publications, newspapers, books, letters, interviews, advertisements, manuals, contracts--to identify meanings, inferences, innuendoes, bias, actual malice, damage to reputation, similarity to other documents, copyright infringement, plagiarism, breach of contract, authorship, and fraud.

As a specialist in educational testing, Dr. Habick provides expert testimony on educational practices related to fairness, bias, psychometrics, and flawed test questions or testing programs. He provides Linguistic Analysis of news reports and other communications and in the assessment of Violations of Legal, Ethical, and Professional Standards.

Dr. Habick testified as an expert witness in linguistics in the U.S. District Court, Trenton, in The United States of America v. Tyshon Bey. Dr. Habick performed linguistic analyses on defamation and trademark cases for Pisanelli-Bice, Las Vegas; Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, Tampa; Seed Intellectual Property Law Group, Seattle, and Perkins Coie, Seattle.

Reasoning, Inc. also provided expert testimony on unfair testing, grading, and educational practices for Seals v. State of Mississippi et al.

Areas of Expertise:

Libel Defamation Slander Trademarks Invasion of Privacy Copyright Infringement Discourse Analysis Logical Analysis Logically Flawed Argumentation

Plagiarism Education Educational Examinations Bias and Fairness Psychometrics Authorship Identification Interpretation of Contracts Taped Conversations

Professional Affiliations
American Dialect Society (ADS)
International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL)

Eric Forister, PhD, is an expert Economist with testifying experience on market definition, market power, and damages. His expertise includes applying advanced statistical techniques to datasets, synthesizing information from documents, and designing and evaluating surveys. A Senior Economist at Econ One, he focuses on relevant questions to tackle complex issues with an efficient and effective style of communication. Dr. Forister also has extensive experience consulting on issues including royalty rates, irreparable harm, sampling, survey design, common impact, and materiality.

Ideal Client Engagement: For litigation-related matters, an ideal engagement would be providing an opinion on economics, damages, market power, or market definition; or providing pre-litigation advice on the economics of potential claims, or the merits of a survey. For non-litigation matters, an ideal engagement would be helping to explain the economics of different business models or consulting to those considering buying or starting an optometry office.

Experience: Dr. Forister has acted in a support/consulting role on over 100 matters. His support work has been a mix of plaintiff and defense work. Dr. Forister has designed and evaluated surveys for IP and marketing cases and worked on a wide range of other matters, including:

• Antitrust - price fixing, exclusionary conduct, monopsony, unfair competition, Robinson-Patman
• Intellectual Property - SEP, FRAND, patents, trademark, irreparable harm
• Marketing - false advertising, product labeling
• General Damages - breach of contract, bankruptcy

Education/Training:

• PhD in Business Administration (Field: Economics), Stanford Graduate School of Business
• BS in Mathematics / Economics, University of California at Los Angeles, magna cum laude

View Dr. Forister's Consulting Profile.

Stephen E. Siwek is Principal at Economists Incorporated, a research and consulting firm with offices in Washington D.C. and in the San Francisco Bay area. Active in research and consulting for over 30 years, Mr. Siwek specializes in the analysis of Economic, Financial, and Accounting issues.

Mr. Siwek has particular expertise in the economic analysis of the U.S motion picture industry and of the related U.S. industries that depend on the effective Protection of Copyrights. Since 1990, Mr. Siwek has published eleven studies on behalf of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (“IIPA”) that analyzed in detail the economic importance of the U.S. “copyright” industries (including the motion picture industry) to the US economy.

Mr. Siwek has also been instrumental in furthering the global efforts of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) to encourage other nations to measure the economic contribution of copyright-based industries in their own countries. In this regard, Mr. Siwek has been closely associated with the development of the WIPO “Guide” for the measurement of copyright industry contributions and he has directly assisted a number of foreign governments in the preparation of their own studies.

In 2005, Mr. Siwek authored an influential study entitled Engines of Growth: Economic Contributions of the U.S. Intellectual Property Industries (Commissioned by NBC Universal). In that study, Mr. Siwek quantified the substantial contributions made by the IP sector as a whole to real U.S. growth. More recently, Mr. Siwek authored two widely reported studies that measured the overall cost of motion picture and sound recording piracy to the U.S.

Litigation Support - Stephen has testified as an expert witness before regulatory bodies and courts on more than 80 occasions. His areas of expertise include Damages Analysis, Intellectual Property, International Trade Regulation, and Telecommunication.

Consulting Specialties:

• Development and provision of expert witness testimony in connection with economic, financial, and accounting issues for regulated industries including communications, energy, and postal concerns
  
  
• Economic and financial consulting and expert witness testimony in antitrust, contract, and bankruptcy litigation - particular emphasis on the estimation of lost profit damages