Alan H. MacPherson (August 10, 1934 - December 8, 2008,Laguna Beach, California, United States) was an Americanpatent attorney who pioneered the "clean room" defense.[1]
MacPherson was born inCalais, Maine on August 10, 1934.[2] He received a full scholarship to attendStanford University, where in 1956 he obtained hisBachelor of Science degree inmechanical engineering, supplementing his tuition by working in the gold and silver mines of Alaska and Idaho.[3] Then, he obtained hisMaster of Science degree, also in Mechanical Engineering, fromMIT. He held technical positions at Space Technology Laboratories inRedondo Beach, California, Dynamic Analysis and Control Laboratory at MIT and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft inEast Hartford, Connecticut before attendingHarvard Law School. In 1964, MacPherson received hisJuris Doctor degree fromHarvard Law School.
MacPherson began his career as patent counsel atBell Labs inMurray Hill, New Jersey. Then, he moved to California to become one of the first patent attorneys atFairchild Semiconductor, when it was still known as "Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation" and before it split off intoNational Semiconductor and other semiconductor companies.
In 1980, MacPherson founded the IP Group of Skjerven Morrill MacPherson LLP and served as the firm'schairman. Skjerven became a leading patent and IPboutique law firms in Silicon Valley, riding the wave of the dot-com boom. Its client list includedNEC,AMD,SanDisk,Mosel Vitelic Corporation andXilinx. In 2002, the Skjerven partnership voted to replace MacPherson, citing differences over the direction of the firm.[1] The breakup was complicated, as it involved a suit filed by MacPherson against his former partners. His suit, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, harassment in violation of FEHA and misrepresentation was sent by the court to arbitration and the Arbitrator, the Hon. John A. Flaherty (Ret.), entered an award for the defendant partners, denying MacPherson's request for relief in its entirety. MacPherson left and began the firm MacPherson Kwok Chen & Heid LLP with offices inSan Jose, California andIrvine, California. According to several commentators, MacPherson's departure from Skjerven, taking his clients to his new firm, led to the 2003 dissolution of Skjerven.[4]
MacPherson co-founded Intellectual Property Acquisitions, Inc. with Dr. Nicola Orsini in late 2002 and served as its non-executive chairman. He also served as Chief IP Strategist at Scintera Networks, Inc., a high speed communications semiconductor company.
MacPherson was credited with pioneering the "clean room" defense when he representedNEC in an IP lawsuit againstIntel in the early 1980s.[1] In the suit, Intel alleged that NEC stole and infringed its programming in itsmicroprocessors, or "microcode". To rebut this accusation, MacPherson gave an independent engineer the task of programming an IC (Integrated Circuit) to do the same thing as the NEC and Intel Chips, but cutting off all access to any previously written microcode - in other words, simulating clean room conditions.[1] After the engineer completed the task, experts concluded that the similarities between the microcode was not because of copying but due to the intrinsic constraints of programming microcode.[1]
MacPherson died on December 8, 2008. He mentored several generations of IP andpatent attorneys practicing in California and Texas. In his late 60s, he set a record for billing more than 3,000 hours a year. He also climbedTanzania'sMount Kilimanjaro.[1] In 2009, MacPherson Kwok Chen & Heid LLP merged with Texas-based law firmHaynes and Boone LLP.