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Mike Elliott
Michael R. Elliott

Cases — Forensic Investigation, Consulting and Expert Witness Testimony

Holland + Knight – 2005    Los Angeles, CA    defense
Orange County Superior Court, Santa Ana, California – Judgment for plaintiff
Maxwell Peterson Associates v American Whole Health
Case 04CC11816
2004/12/03 - 2005/12/12
Case involved the misappropriation of a mailing list for registered acupuncturists. Primary contribution was to demonstrate how easily such a list could be obtained from publicly available websites.
  • Prepared a 15,000 item mailing list of acupuncturists from web-available sources over three days.
  • Testified as to the techniques available to retrieve such information from public sources and how data from multiple sources could be merged into a set of unique and uniform records.

Lee & Oh – 2005 to 2007    Los Angeles, California    plaintiff
American Arbitration Association, Los Angeles, California – Judgment for plaintiff
Dongjin Semichem Co. Ltd. vs Emailfund, Inc.
Case 02CC03682
2004 - 2007/07/10
Case involved the use of elliptic curve cryptography, Linux and Bluetooth in constrained devices such as hand-held computers to communicate securely over a wireless link to a secure server. Primary contribution was to show that the contract in question was not fulfilled due to logical inconsistencies in the defendant's required demonstration.
  • Provided the necessary evidence to show that a demonstration purportedly given years earlier by the defendant of constrained device secure communication could not have taken place due to temporal anomalies with the equipment and software.
  • Provided an equivalent demonstration where no cryptography whatsoever was used, thereby showing that defendant's reproduction of the earlier demonstration failed to meet minimal contractual requirements.

Spiro Moss LLP – 2006 to 2007    Los Angeles, California    plaintiff
United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division – Settlment for plaintiff
Leonard et. al. vs. Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc.
Case 5:05-cv-00829-JW
2005/02/25 - 2010/06/18
Case involved defendant's violation of employment contract involving employee lunch breaks. Key contribution was to invalidate defendant's position that such lunch breaks could not be recorded in a timely and accurate manner by the employees.
  • Interviewed employees in the field in order to determine how the Norand hand-held data entry device used for product inventory recording was used on the job and how it might be programatically enhanced to more readily meet their needs.
  • Researched the techniques needed to program the Norand device in order to determine whether it could be programatically enhanced to record meal break information.
  • Provided an opinion outlining three different techniques by which the Norand device could be programmed to record meal break information.

Member Services, Inc. – 2008 to 2011    Troutman, North Carolina    plaintiff
United States District Court, Northern District of New York, Binghamton Division – Judgment for plaintiff
Member Services, Inc., Roger D. Banks, and R. Aaron Banks vs. Security Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York and Archway Technology Services, Inc.
Case 3:06-CV-1164(TJM/DEP)
2007/03/12 - 2011/10/13
Case involved the misappropriation of trade secrets and the improper copying of Java source code by defendant. Additionally, this case involved the evolution of defendant's Java-based web sites over time and the functionality they provided at several strategic moments in time.
The $26,000,000 verdict for plaintiff was the 75th largest verdict in the United States for 2011.
  • Provided analysis of the migration of functionality from plaintiff's source code to defendant's source code, resulting in irrefutable examples of direct code copying.
  • Recreated defendant's back office software and web applications at various times in the past in order to demonstrate they did not have the functionality described by defendant in sworn testimony.

Gibson, Robb & Lindh LLP – 2009 to 2010    San Francisco, California    plaintiff
California Superior Court, Los Angeles, California – Settlement favorable to plaintiff
Business to Business Markets, Inc. (B2B) v. Kshema Technologies,
Case BC280932
2008/11/07 - 2010/05/05
Case involved the construction of Java-based websites for plaintiff and the level of functionality of these web sites, their overall engineering sophistication and the degree to which they met the contract's objectives.
This case was successfully appealed after an initial judgment for defense, resulting in a final settlement for plaintiff.
  • Recreated the websites in question from source code, synthesized example test data and provided an analysis of functionality.
  • Analyzed the Java source code for the websites in order to provide an opinion on the level of engineering sophistication used in them and potential problems with future software maintenance and enhancements.
  • Provided an opinion outlining several areas in which the plaintiff's delivered product failed to meet minimal contractual requirements.

Sedgwick LLP – 2013 to 2014    Irvine, California    defense
California Superior Court, San Diego, California – Settlement favorable to defense
Predicate Logic, Inc. vs Lillian Maestas
Case 37-2009-00083882
2009/02/23 - 2014/02/13
Case involved the interdependency between two software entities, one created for the US Government and one created internally for eventual sale to non-Governmental customers. Both software entities used the Java programming language, Java Server Pages and the Struts framework.
  • Found in the Java source code of the plaintiff crucial dependencies on the software entity created for the US Government, thereby refuting the claim of plaintiff that the two were independent.
  • Provided analysis and supporting evidence to attorneys on multiple methods to impeach the 30(b)(6) witness for the plaintiff.

Conroy, Simberg, Ganon, Krevans, Abel, Lurvey,
Morrow & Schefer, P.A. – 2014 to 2015
Certon v Meggitt Control Systems
case number not disclosed
2014/11/11
   Hollywood, Florida    defense
US District Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando, FL – Settlement (impact unknown)
Live Face on Web v Tweople, et. al
Case 6:14-CV-00044-ACC-TBS
2014/05/11
Case involved the direct and indirect copyright infringement of Javascript code available through multiple websites and the responsibility of client to control the distribution of copyrighted material about which the client was completely unaware.
  • Through a detailed explanation of the method by which websites distribute code via the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), successfully refuted opposing experts's opinion that the client caused the distribution of copyrighted material.
  • Provided a basis for sucessfully refuting plaintiff's assertions that client had control over the distribution of copyrighted material.

Dongell, Lawrence, Finney LLP – 2014    Los Angeles, California    defense
JAMS Arbitration, San Francisco, California – Settlement (impact unknown)
Certon v Meggitt Control Systems
case number not disclosed
2014/11/11
Case involved the airworthiness certification of client's product as it was used in aircraft operating in civil airspace. In particular, the degree to which formal testing reflected the requirements provided by client and their suitability to the constraints imposed by DO-178B on plaintiff's testing methodology, and the degree to which an applicant has latitude in achieving airworthiness assessment.
  • Provided an analysis of the impact of fixed-price contracts in the domain of program validation and verification, the differences between skill sets of programmers and testers, and the failure of project management by plaintiff.
  • Provided a basis for refuting plaintiff's assertions that client failed to follow proper validation and verification steps to achieve airworthiness certification.

Ruben & Sjolander LLP – 2017    Woodland Hills, California    defense
California Superior Court, Santa Ana, California – Settlement (outcome favorable to defendant)
Automation and Support Systems LLC v. VPLS Inc., et. al.
30-2015-00801329-CU-FR-CJC
2017/01/13
Case involved an accusation by plaintiff that web support and hosting services provdied by defendant were less than those outlined in the contract for services.
  • Provided initial analysis of the web artifacts remaining on computers used by plaintiff but still in possession of defendant.
  • Successfully archived the bulk of plaintiff's software and web artifacts in order to provide a basis for subsequent analysis.

Casey Gerry Schenk Francavilla Blatt & Penfield LLC – 2016 - 2017    San Diego, California    plaintiff
California Superior Court, San Diego, California – Settlement (outcome unknown)
Douglas P. Brown and Patricia D. Brown vs. J.P. Instruments, Inc.; et. al.
37-2014-00043438-CU-PO-CTL
2017/06/09
Case involved the determination of airworthiness of a private aircraft which had instrumentation installed, furnished by defendant.
  • Provided analysis of defendant's source code with concerns about how well it conformed to the requirements of DO-178B.
  • Advised attorneys on how the overall process of airworthiness determination is done for aircraft operating in civil airspace and how requirements and requirements traceability could be used by plaintiff to show inadequacies in defendant's product.

Gauntlett & Associates – 2018    Irvine, California    defense
US District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco, California – Settlement and dismissal of case favorable to defendant
GoPro vs. 360 Heros
3-16-cv-01944 (SI)
6/26/2017
Opposing expert created a rationale for why plaintiff could not have modified a key computer artifact supporting his view of trademark infringement. As defense expert, I was able to demonstrate that opposing expert's opinion had no basis in reality, leading to dismissal of the case.
  • Provided background information to attorneys as to European privacy laws and their applicability to this case.
  • Was able to turn plaintiff's refusal to furnish file artifacts into a winning strategy where an equivalent artifact was created and shown to be easily manipulable, in direct contradiction of opposing expert's testimony.

Contact Information

Michael R. Elliott
mre@unixforensic.com

419 Main Street # 440
Huntington Beach, CA 92648-5199

(562) 645-3355