MathWorks v.MathWorks v.National Instruments National Instruments

Patent Case Patent Case

UC Berkeley CET

Patent Engineering -IEOR 190G02-09-2009Spring 2009Samuel Choi

In 1990’s, 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.

BackgroundBackground

Developer of technical computing software

MATLAB and Simulink.

About The MathWorksAbout The MathWorks

Virtual instrumentation• For productivity and lowers costs for

customers easy-to-integrate software LabVIEW• graphical development environment,

and modular hardware

About National InstrumentsAbout National Instruments

NI LabVIEWNI LabVIEW

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.

National Instruments (NI) National Instruments (NI) suedsued

January 2003 January 2003

Federal Circuit: National Instruments v.s. MathWorks

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.

Decision Affirms 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

Decision Affirms Decision Affirms

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

NI takes controlNI takes control

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)

MathWorks listensMathWorks listens

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.

Patent infringement trialPatent infringement trial