Client Issue:
A leading American video game company alleged that former employees misappropriated its source code for a title that sold over 40 million copies and used it to develop and sell a competing game in China. The lawsuit asserted claims of copyright infringement and trade secret theft.
CRA Approach:
- Pre-discovery reverse engineering: CRA’s digital forensic expert supported counsel for the American video game company by analyzing the binary executable files of both video games, identifying indicators that suggested likely similarities in their underlying source code.
- Source code comparison: Both automated and manual comparisons of the source code from the two video games were performed, analyzing literal and non-literal similarities across multiple key historical versions of each.
- Discovery consulting: The CRA expert helped deliver clear and comprehensive discovery requests for the source code and technical information, including examples of expected content and preferred production formats. Following the opposing party’s initial source code production, our expert identified omissions and successfully compelled the production of additional withheld source code.
- Development history analysis: Contributions of individual software developers over time were analyzed, and key modifications in critical source code files were identified.
- Expert declarations: The CRA expert wrote and submitted seven declarations, presenting his findings in a clear, precise manner that helped the judge and clerk understand and connect the technical issues to the broader context of the dispute. These findings were subsequently corroborated by a neutral expert jointly appointed by both parties.
Client Impact:
The case reached a favorable settlement after our expert submitted his declarations and prior to the issuance of a formal expert report.
