Somehow I have to get up early every day this week, today is a 8a.m. patent review meeting.\u00a0 I was asked to sit in the meeting to review two verification related the patent application from Israel.\u00a0 Verification related IP is really hard to patent, it is not that we are not innovative.\u00a0 The problem is there is no way for us to enforce our patent.\u00a0 We see our competitors’ chips, but we don’t know how they verify their chips.\u00a0 They can do pretty much whatever they want behind closed door.\u00a0 In the past few years, we start to see 3rd party verification IP on the market.\u00a0 Verification IP is just software, so it falls into the same category as software patents, which is different from the hardware patent my company familiar with.<\/p>\n
Anyways, the Israel guys presents two patents application to the patent committee.\u00a0 I was asked to review the initial patent application as one of the few “verification experts” in the company.\u00a0 Helping the lawyers to determine whether the idea is patent worthy.\u00a0 We have to examine the application base on whether it is new, whether it is trivial and whether the patent is enforceable.\u00a0 If the patent in question is truly innovative, it will worth the trouble for me to get up early, but it is exactly the opposite.\u00a0 The Israel guys are trying to patent an idea we have been using over 3 years in Vancouver.\u00a0 This idea is so good that we even asked Cadence for feature enhancement to put it into their verification tool.\u00a0 Actually, the idea is already implemented in the latest tool release.\u00a0 The Israel guys must be living in a cave, it seems they are so out of touch with the latest verification technology.\u00a0 Even if this idea is patentable, there is no way for us to enforce the patent.\u00a0 We will never know other companies copying our way or not.\u00a0 The only company we will ever see any infringement is from Cadence.\u00a0 It is the last thing you would sue your tool vendor, when there are only two companies on earth making the tools of your trade.\u00a0 Reviewing the patent itself is a total waste of time, I can’t believe some one is dumb enough trying to apply for a patent on this piece of antique.\u00a0 However, it is an interesting experience to attend a patent review meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Somehow I have to get up early every day this week, today is a 8a.m. patent review meeting.\u00a0 I was asked to sit in the meeting to review two verification related the patent application from Israel.\u00a0 Verification related IP is really hard to patent, it is not that we are not innovative.\u00a0 The problem is … Continue reading Patent review meeting<\/span>