In a four-hour opening argument on the first day of the trial in U.S. District Court here, lawyers for Synopsys outlined the company's case, contending, among other things, that Lukas van Ginneken, a former Synopsys employee and Magma co-founder, conceived of fixed timing closure on his own during the time he was employed by Synopsys. Magma contends that the technology was originally created through a joint development between Synopsys and IBM and is thus covered under a joint EDA patent licensing agreement that Magma has with IBM.

Constant delay fixed timing closure technology is at the heart of the nearly two-year-old patent dispute between the two companies. Synopsys originally filed suit against Magma in September 2004, following receipt of a letter from Magma that suggested Synopsys was violating three of the company's patents. Two of the disputed patents are entitled "Timing Closure Methodology." Van Ginneken is listed as the sole inventor on these patents.

Synopsys contends that Kudva, who worked with van Ginneken under the auspices of the joint development agreement, did not play a role in the conception of the technology. U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney, who is presiding over the case, said settling the question of Kudva's involvement in the creation of the technology would play an important role in determining the outcome of the trial.

"The court is going to have to decide what happened between van Ginneken and Kudva in this moment [that they were collaborating through the Synopsys-IBM joint development]," Chesney said.

Indeed, this highly complex case which involves events stretching back a decade or more, seems at this point to hinge on a few very specific determinations, many falling during the two-year period of the Synopsys-IBM collaboration.

"I think we are going to get down to a very rarified idea here," Chesney said. "There is going to be a small of amount of time that is very important."

Kudva is not scheduled to testify in person during the trial. In an interview following the trial's opening session, David Stanley, Magma senior vice president of corporate affairs, said a videotaped deposition of Kudva and transcript of that session would be entered into evidence. Though he declined to discuss the specifics of Kudva's deposition, citing the terms of a confidentiality agreement between Magma and IBM, Stanley said Magma agrees with Kudva's testimony and suggested it would be beneficial to the company's case.

One key issue is the existence of a 1998 white paper describing the technology, co-bylined by van Ginneken, Kudva and Synopsys engineer Narendra Shenoy, titled "Driving on the Left-Hand Side." Magma contends that this paper was originally written in 1996 and accepted by the ICCAD conference that year, but withdrawn prior to publication because IBM protested the fact that Kudva's name did not originally appear. The paper was apparently revised in 1998 (after van Ginneken started to work for Magma) and Kudva's name was added at that time.

Synopsys' lead attorney, Chris Scott Graham, said Monday that Kudva was granted a co-byline as a courtesy. Because the two companies were known to be working on a project together, Graham said, it was considered appropriate to list authors from both companies to demonstrate to the market that the partnership was fruitful.