MathWorks v. National Instruments Patent Case

1
MathWorks v.National Instruments Patent Case

• UC Berkeley
• CET
• Patent Engineering -IEOR 190G
• 02-09-2009
• Spring 2009
• Samuel Choi

2
Background

• In 1990s, there were 2 simulation languages
  available.
• One was Mathworks Matlab and Simulink and the
  other was MatrixX
• MatrixX supported most of the simulation software
  to Department of Defense (DOD)
• Mathworks bought a company developed MatrixX
• DOD teamed up with National Instrument and sued
  Matworks for Anti-trust thinking that it would be
  monopoly and DOD might not get MatrixX support if
  Mathworks owns MatrixX.
• Mathworks lost.
• National Instrument owns MatrixX, and along with
  it, some patents.

3
About The MathWorks

• Developer of technical computing software
• MATLAB and Simulink.

4
About National Instruments

• Virtual instrumentation
• For productivity and lowers costs for customers
• easy-to-integrate software
• LabVIEW
• graphical development environment, and modular
  hardware

5
NI LabVIEW
6
National Instruments (NI) sued

• For infringement of its patented method of
  creating data flow diagrams.
• The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District
  of Texas entered a judgment in the patent suit
  brought by National Instruments (NI) against The
  MathWorks.

7
January 2003
Federal Circuit National Instruments v.s.
MathWorks
8
Decision Affirms

• Decision Affirms Jury Verdict in Favor of NI
  Finding Infringement by Simulink and Related
  Products
• MathWorks knew about the patent since they once
  owned it when they bought MatrixX.
• MathWorks did not argued to fight back.
• U.S. Patent Nos.
• 4,901,221
• 4,914,568
• 5,301,336
• A fourth patent, No. 5,291,587, was found valid
  but not infringed.

9
Decision Affirms

• Relate to NI LabVIEW software, which contains
  major innovations in programming design tools.
• The jury also awarded National Instruments 3.5
  million damages
• Forbid the sale of MathWorks Simulink

10
NI takes control

• 11/19/2003
• new LabVIEW Math Interface Toolkit
• adds the LabVIEW user interface to the
  Simulink environment.
• to instrument and verify their control models.
  The toolkit gives The MathWorks, Inc. customers a
  licensed manner to control and view
  Simulink data under these National Instruments
  patents

11
MathWorks listens

• Oct. 14, 2004
• MathWorks, Inc. is prohibited from manufacturing
  and shipping of previous Simulink(R).
• September 2004
• Modified Simulink(R) then initiated litigation to
  clear possible infringement by the modified
  version
• service pack (R14SP1)

12
Patent infringement trial

• begins on new version of Simulink
• January 5, 2005
• Court concluded that The MathWorks' modified
  version of Simulink(R) presents substantial
  issues with respect to infringement that should
  be decided by trial.