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I’ve always wondered. In cases like your Facebook example. What prevents Facebook from giving a different source code instead of the actual code? Like if they

by rafark 3y ago

I’ve always wondered. In cases like your Facebook example. What prevents Facebook from giving a different source code instead of the actual code? Like if they were using a patented code, they could in theory quickly write some new code and show that in court. Who’s going to know?

jordanpg 3y ago
They would be subject to federal criminal contempt of court charges. Lying during discovery is serious business.
- tzs 3y ago
  On top of that some engineer from defendant is going to be deposed about the code during discovery. Lying during a deposition is criminal perjury.
closeparen 3y ago
In practice what happens is as an IC engineer, one of the meetings in your interminable string of Zoom meetings has the firm's legal department and outside counsel on it. They're asking about something from years ago that may or may not be real, or called what they think it's called, or have overlapped your tenure at all. You have neither the incentive nor the opportunity to launch some kind of conspiracy to protect the company. You tell them what you remember about it, if anything. Maybe give them the names of other people who might know something or links to documents they might not have seen. Then you probably never hear anything about it again.
tzs 3y ago
They would face some hurdles. 1. Plaintiff's experts will have weeks or months to examine the code. There is a good chance they will notice it doesn't match what plaintiff figured out when they were doing their pre-lawsuit investigation to determine if there was enough evidence to support suing. 2. Plaintiff doesn't just ask for a copy of the code. They will ask for things like engineering notebooks kept during development, earlier versions, and various other things related to the development of the alleged infringing product. Facebook would probably have to fake quite a bit more than just the current product code. They might claim they don't have any of that other stuff, but if they make/keep that kind of thing for their other products that is going to look pretty suspicious. 3. Plaintiff is going to depose individual engineers who were involved with the product, and probably also call some of them to testify in court. If they lie under oath (and depositions are under oath just like in court testimony) they could personally be charged with criminal perjury. This is not one of those things where the employer is the one that gets punished. That falls squarely on the engineer.

by rafark 3y ago

jordanpg 3y ago

They would be subject to federal criminal contempt of court charges. Lying during discovery is serious business.

tzs 3y ago
On top of that some engineer from defendant is going to be deposed about the code during discovery. Lying during a deposition is criminal perjury.

closeparen 3y ago

In practice what happens is as an IC engineer, one of the meetings in your interminable string of Zoom meetings has the firm's legal department and outside counsel on it. They're asking about something from years ago that may or may not be real, or called what they think it's called, or have overlapped your tenure at all. You have neither the incentive nor the opportunity to launch some kind of conspiracy to protect the company. You tell them what you remember about it, if anything. Maybe give them the names of other people who might know something or links to documents they might not have seen. Then you probably never hear anything about it again.

tzs 3y ago

They would face some hurdles. 1. Plaintiff's experts will have weeks or months to examine the code. There is a good chance they will notice it doesn't match what plaintiff figured out when they were doing their pre-lawsuit investigation to determine if there was enough evidence to support suing. 2. Plaintiff doesn't just ask for a copy of the code. They will ask for things like engineering notebooks kept during development, earlier versions, and various other things related to the development of the alleged infringing product. Facebook would probably have to fake quite a bit more than just the current product code. They might claim they don't have any of that other stuff, but if they make/keep that kind of thing for their other products that is going to look pretty suspicious. 3. Plaintiff is going to depose individual engineers who were involved with the product, and probably also call some of them to testify in court. If they lie under oath (and depositions are under oath just like in court testimony) they could personally be charged with criminal perjury. This is not one of those things where the employer is the one that gets punished. That falls squarely on the engineer.