"This is the beginning of the end for Avant!," said Jack Harding, president and Chief Executive Officer of Cadence, which has been pursuing a civil case against the company for more than three years over alleged source-code theft. A related criminal trial against Avant! executives was recently sent to a Santa Clara County grand jury.

An Avant! spokesman noted that the company stopped selling Aquarius a year ago, and that a majority of customers have moved to the current Apollo system. "We think the impact is manageable," he said. "The place and route tool we now sell is Apollo, and no claims have been made against Apollo."

The spokesman acknowledged, however, that there are still active Aquarius customers. The ruling thus carries more impact than an earlier ruling against ArcCell, which came after that product, the predecessor to Aquarius, was almost completely phased out.

Moreover, those now making the transition could find their way blocked - according to Harding, the court's action bans a translator from Aquarius to Apollo. Harding added that the decision "clears the way" for legal action against Apollo, because of the way it defined trade secrets.

Asked if Apollo infringes on Cadence copyrights, Harding replied, "we know it does." He maintained that Apollo contains "line-by-line" copying of source code, and said Cadence will pursue an injunction against Apollo immediately.

The court order states that Aquarius was found to have "substantially similar" data structures to Cadence's Design Framework II product, and that some record type values appear to be copied "verbatim." It bans Avant! from infringing Cadence's Design Framework II copyright by selling, copying or transferring Aquarius or upgrades, but allows Avant! to support the product for 60 days.

The order also states that Avant! is to require Aquarius users to return the products to Avant! for destruction, and to provide Cadence with a list of names of purchasers who still retain a functional copy of the product.

"We have a lot of confidence in our customers," Harding said. "We don't believe anyone would willfully buy stolen property, and it's now crystal clear that this is stolen property and that their [Avant!'s] business is based on stolen property."