( ESNUG 529 Item 2 ) -------------------------------------------- [07/18/13]

Subject: Aart's lawyers, CDNS vs. BDA, EVE, Hogan, Drako, prison protection




     




                DAC'13 Troublemaker's Panel in Austin, TX

     Joe Sawicki - Q: What's it like to be sued by Aart's lawyers
     about EVE a full 5 days before Synopsys acquired EVE?  A: Every
     time you go into an IP battle, you end up in a court of random
     people taken off the street to jury it.  Our lawyers say we'll
     be in fine shape.

     Dean Drako - Q: You made a bundle of money off Barracuda Networks.
     Why don't you form your own EDA company called "Deanotronics" to
     take on Synopsys and Cadence?  A: "It's something I think about
     for a little bit, and then I think about being sued by Aart and
     Lip-bu -- and I have second thoughts."

     Joe Costello - Q: Why is Oasys not being sued?  Must not be good
     enough if Synopsys isn't suing you.  A: I saw Aart and Chi-Foon on
     the DAC floor and they didn't serve us papers -- and they both
     said I've given them trouble.

     Gary Smith - "When a big EDA company sues a small EDA company, you
     know the small company has a better tool.  Check out their tool."

     Jim Hogan - "You are so going to get deposed!"  [audence laughs]

     Gary Smith - Q: What do you think of the Cadence vs. BDA lawsuit?
     A: "How in hell do you sue a SPICE company? For Christ's sake it's
     UC Berkeley SPICE, it's open sourced, you add a few scripts to it,
     what's to sue???"

     Jim Hogan - Q: What do you think of the Cadence vs. BDA lawsuit?
     [ humorous first answer ] A: "I don't recall!"  [audience laughs]
     A: "It's a contract dispute.  It's not a stolen code case.  It'll
     get resolved.  No one stole anything."

     Joe Sawicki - There's always a tension in the bigger companies.
     You're forced to interface to small start-ups that take money
     away from you -- or the other side is you're a full flow vendor.
     Cadence wants BDA to use a crippled interface to make the Cadence
     tools look good.  Customers hate that.

     Joe Costello - Avanti stole our shit and they deserved to get
     fried for it.  They stole our code.  On the flip side, I hate it
     when big companies use the legal system as a weapon.  The big
     guys do it because they can.  I think it stiffles invation and
     it's crap.

     Gary Smith - EDA start-up now have put aside money as a "legal
     fund" as part of the EDA start-up process.

     Jim Hogan - Other things a small EDA start-up can do is make
     both offensive and defensive IP.  Also small start-ups get a big
     corporate investor like Intel or Qualcomm to protect them just
     like how one gets protection in prison.  Rocketick and Nvidia;
     the big company protects the little company from lawsuits.

   !!!     "It's not a BUG,
  /o o\  /  it's a FEATURE!"
 (  >  )
  \ - / 
  _] [_     (jcooley 1991)