Software Expert Witnesses
Software is licensed, embedded, valued, and protected in ways that create frequent and costly disputes among the companies that build and depend on it. Licensors and licensees litigate over license scope, audit findings, and usage beyond contracted limits, while developers contest copyright infringement, database copying, and trade secret misappropriation involving source code and system designs. Patent holders assert claims against operating systems, user interfaces, financial platforms, and embedded applications, and transaction parties dispute software valuations, escrow releases, and representations about code quality. In each case, the outcome depends on technical facts about what the software contains, how it functions, and how it relates to the rights and obligations in dispute.
A software expert establishes those facts through disciplined technical analysis. Depending on the matter, the expert can compare source and object code to identify literal and non-literal copying, trace the origin and lineage of disputed components, analyze database structures and data flows, or map software functionality to patent claims and prior art. In licensing and valuation disputes, the analysis may examine deployment records, usage metrics, code quality, and maintainability to determine compliance or value. Forensic examination of systems and repositories can also reveal deleted, altered, or misappropriated files. These findings support or rebut infringement and misappropriation claims, quantify license shortfalls, and provide a technical foundation for damages and valuation opinions.
Software disputes span operating systems, enterprise platforms, embedded devices, financial technology, and consumer applications, so the expert's experience should match the technology layer at issue. Round Table Group's software experts include veterans of companies such as Apple, Taligent, Burroughs, Olivetti, and Xerox, academics in distributed systems, programming languages, and human-computer interaction, and specialists in avionics software certified under Federal Aviation Administration standards, software escrow and valuation, and computer forensics. Many have testified on patent infringement and invalidity, copyright infringement, database copying, software licensing, and computer security, with some having testified dozens of times. Drawing on more than 75,000 expert searches for litigators, we can help you assemble the right software expert team by calling us at (202) 908-4500.