Chronicles the origins and evolution of the landmark intellectual property dispute between Cadence design systems and Avant! Cadence Corporation has been a leading developer of electronic data automation software used in computer-aided design of complex integrated circuits. In 1991, four employees left Cadence a competitive firm, ArcSys (later changed to Avant!). In 1994, Gerald Hsu, chief executive Cadence, resigned and joined the Avant! as the new CEO. This movement began a series of legal disputes between the companies, revolving around the protection of commercial secrets. Shortly after leaving Hsu, Avant! continue to hire many workers Cadence, including several critical programmers. In addition, there is evidence that some of these people have stolen some of the most valuable source Cadence website. Cadence has started legal action, including criminal charges against Avant! and some of its employees for violation of privacy laws. Chronicle of the highlights of the legal battle, the Battle of the market between firms and public relations battle. Finally, ask that the two leaders should do in their position. Central questions: what is intellectual property, how to protect intellectual property, and how to effectively respond to the perceived theft of intellectual property. The background on the industry and the company is given. "Hide
by John Glynn, Jr., Pratap Mukherjee Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business 13 pages. Publication Date: June 6, 2003. Prod. #: E61A-PDF-ENG
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