Frequently Asked Questions

TAEUS is known throughout the IP world as the leader in IP patent infringement, reverse engineering, patent portfolio managment, expert witness testimony, etc. TAEUS clients have expressed a need for "forward engineering" services as well as the "reverse engineering" services that have been traditionally offered. This is where TAEUS Design Services was born. TAEUS has developed relationships with semiconductor design centers around the globe that produce state of the art designs, physical layouts and test vectors. We offer a full range of services that are rivaled by none, delivered on time and at budget.

Any company wishing to maximize their potential profits while minimizing risk. Our design services staff will provide designs which have been produced using state of the art tools that perform to your specification with guaranteed success.

As any design professional will tell you, the better the specification for a product, the better the quote. The TAEUS quotation process for design services is as follows: - TAEUS supplies a very brief questionaire to regarding your product needs. - Once the questionaire is received, the TAEUS design team will review the request. - Subsequently a meeting will be held between the TAEUS design team, the customer and any other pertinent parties in order to clarify any issues and ensure that both sides know exactly what the requirements are. - TAEUS will then generate a quote for services to be rendered. If you wish to begin this process please contact: Robert W. Manning 1155 Kelly Johnson Blvd Suite 400 Colorado Springs, CO 80920 (719) 325-5019 office (719) 232-4114 Cell bmanning@taeus.us

We think you will find that TAEUS design services are competitive with any other state of the art design house. We also feel that our dedication to exceeding our customers expectations will make the challenges associated with the design of your circuits as simple as possible. Our goal is to make sure that the design of your circuits will not be in the critical path for the success of your project. Again - time to market is the key.

For any and all Matrix1 reverse engineering activities, please contact: Robert W. Manning (719) 325-5019 direct (719) 232-4114 cell bmanning@taeus.us

Yes, expert witness testimony is an art as much as it is a science. We provide experts in most technical fields who can testify if a patented technology is being used in a device. Our objective is to build credibility with the jury by taking extremely complex technical subjects and making them as comprehensible as possible to the ordinary citizen.

Depending on the type of patent, we will use different technologies to investigate potential patent infringement. In the case of integrated circiuts we often will do a complete circuit extraction, but not until we exhaust several quicker less expensive to demonstrate a patent is being used.

Yes, we routinely use a variety of techniques to demonstrate a copyrighted software alogrithm is being used.

According to Wikipedia Reverse Engineering is defined as: Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device or object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves taking something (e.g. a mechanical device, an electronic component, a software program) apart and analyzing its workings in detail, usually to try to make a new device or program that does the same thing without copying anything from the original.

BRIAN - I like CW response to this question which was: "semiconductor acts in Canada, United States, and many other countries talk about RE as an important way to educate engineers and promote healthy competition" - I don't know this for a fact myself but if we could research it I would like to add it to my verbiage below: Of course it is. This is one question that is constantly asked and the answer is unequivocally - YES. Certainly, just like guns don't kill, people do, the resultant information can be used for legal or illegal activities. It's HOW it is used that is important. TAEUS advocates the use of reverse engineering data in three arenas: 1) Patent enforcement 2) Competitive analysis 3) End of Life product replacement In each of these areas it is perfectly legal to perform reverse engineering. It is only illegal if the data is copied exactly to a new product OR patented circuits are subsequently used in new products.

Matrix1 is a software application that provides engineers images and schematics of a competitor's IC in a user-friendly software application that runs on any Windows-based computer.

There are three groups that would have a need for matrix1: 1) The IP litigation team - they will use matrix1 to determine patent infringement by competitors and use the resultant matrix1 reports to defend these claims in a court of law; however, having access to these reports prior to meeting with the competitors may indeed save expensive unnecessary litigation 2) The competitve analysis team - they will use the software version of the tool in order to investigate any aspect of a competitor's design (either Semiconductor or printed circuit board). This allows them to become aware of their competitor's road map, design techniques and spurs thoughtful invention. 3) "end of life" customers. Does your company have an IC or PCB that is about to EOL and you don't have a replacement? TAEUS can reverse engineer the part, create a schematic netlist in EDIF or many other formats, then our design services group can create a replacement product.

The main differences between the two uses of the tool are this: - The IP professional is typically interested in hard copy reports generated by the tool. These reports need to be customized for the IP professional and their ability to use them in a court of law to defend their patent against possible infringement. - The engineering professional typically is interested in diving in and reviewing the circuits in detail using the GUI (graphical User Interface) that is supplied with the matrix1 software. There may also be times when the engineering professional wishes to export and simulate the schematic netlist in order to determine operating characteristics (or weaknesses) of competitors products.

The answer is yes and yes. If you have parts for anaylsis we will use these or if you don't TAEUS will procure them for the work. Also, TAEUS maintains a very exstensive archive of semiconductor products that have been reverse engineered over the years. Before starting an IC or PCB RE project XX parts will need to be obtained. To find out if TAEUS has parts of interest, please contact: Robert W. Manning 1155 Kelly Johnson Blvd Suite 400 Colorado Springs, CO 80920 (719) 325-5019 office (719) 232-4114 Cell bmanning@taeus.us

NO, the matrix1 tool does not supply this information. It is designed to supply physical IC or PCB layouts and schematics and the interrelationship between the two. TAEUS DOES, however, have additional capabilities to extract code buried within ROM type devices (either stand-alone or embedded in SOC's). Please contact Bob Manning Send email for further information about this service

This is as varied as the number of products there are in existence today. The cost is driven by several factors: - how much is already known about the product (i.e. are there datasheets or is this a blind RE) - How much of the circuitry is needed to be extracted? (obvioulsy if you only want an I/O buffer extracted that is much less expensive than the full chip) - How difficult is it to obtain devices for the RE? These are but a few of the factors involved. Please contact us for further information Robert W. Manning 1155 Kelly Johnson Blvd Suite 400 Colorado Springs, CO 80920 (719) 325-5019 office (719) 232-4114 Cell bmanning@taeus.us

"Back in the day", this was an acceptable alternative to using a tool like Matrix1. Today, however, there are a few reasons that make this unacceptable: - Time to market is THE most critical component in the success of most products. If you pull your design team to do competitive RE, this is time they are NOT designing your next cash cow. - Geometries have become so small that the RE job can only be accomplished with VERY expensive hardware and software packages. This is where Matrix1 shines. The system used to create the Matrix1 packages costs several million dollars. This is typically not feasible for most companies to duplicate. - Mistakes happen. Our engineering team does this for a living and prides themselves on the accuracy of their extractions. Your engineering team may do a reverse engineering task once or twice in their carreer. These are but a few of the reasons it doesn't make sense to perform your own RE work.

For any and all Matrix1 reverse engineering activities, please contact: Robert W. Manning 1155 Kelly Johnson Blvd Suite 400 Colorado Springs, CO 80920 (719) 325-5019 office (719) 232-4114 Cell bmanning@taeus.us

A T(ip) score is a weighed average of 8 parameters we use to identify patent's value.