EDA Consortium Conducts Multi-Faceted Investigation into EDA Software Piracy

SAN JOSE, Calif.-- May 6, 2009 --The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Anti-Piracy Committee is conducting an on-going investigation into EDA software piracy on multiple fronts.

“Until recently, many EDA vendors considered the software too complex to use without significant technical support for piracy to be a major concern. Advances in EDA software and access to fabrication have resulted in increasing concerns about software piracy,” said Scott Baeder, Chairman of the EDA Consortium’s Anti-Piracy Committee and Senior Architect at Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

The EDA Consortium is working with multiple companies in the anti-piracy field to investigate EDA software piracy from multiple aspects. One aspect is availability – what software is available and where. Using a carefully chosen sampling of EDA products from various EDAC member companies, an investigation was conducted for EDAC by Arxan, Inc. into pirated EDA software availability and download activity on the internet. This will be followed by a more detailed investigation into how the “cracking” is being done, which could lead to improved software protection. Initial results have been interesting both from the standpoint of what is being pirated and the audacity of the pirates.

Another aspect of the investigation is focusing more on detection and identification of unauthorized use. A recent webinar conducted by V.i. Labs, Inc and EDAC presented this approach, which has been successfully used by EDAC members and others to re-coup revenues that would have been lost through piracy, both intentional and inadvertent. (Recognizing there are cases where the end user may not be aware they are using pirated software.)

A third aspect of the investigation, conducted for EDAC by S.A.F.E. Inc., bridges the other two approaches, looking at both the potential software vulnerabilities and the extent of the revenue loss to EDA vendors. This investigation looks at different categories of EDA software as well as different types of piracy, both intentional and unintentional.

In addition to the ongoing investigations, Mr. Baeder recently presented an overview of EDA software piracy to ICAF – Industrial College of the Armed Forces – which may have an interest in any national security implications of software piracy.

As the investigation proceeds, interim results have been presented to the EDAC Board of Directors and members. When the investigations are concluded, final reports will be made available to EDAC members.

About the EDA Consortium

The EDA Consortium is the international association of companies that provide design tools and services that enable engineers to create the world’s electronic products used for communications, computer, space technology, medical, automotive, industrial equipment, and consumer electronics markets among others. For more information about the EDA Consortium visit www.edac.org.

About Arxan Technologies

Arxan Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of application hardening solutions designed to protect software applications from tampering to minimize risk and maximize profitability. Our advanced software protection solutions secure enterprises, ISVs and digital media providers against unauthorized use, malware insertion, piracy, and reverse engineering of intellectual property. Our products defend, detect, alert and react to attacks through a threat-based, customizable approach that is proven, easy to use and non-disruptive. Arxan supports a full range of application protection needs, from commercial software to military grade assurance. The government relies on ADS Systems to deliver a best-of-breed anti-tamper platform to protect critical program information. Founded in 2001, Arxan Technologies has offices in Bethesda, MD, San Francisco, CA and West Lafayette, IN. For more information, please visit www.arxan.com.

About V.i. Laboratories (V.i. Labs)

V.i. Labs is the first company to offer Piracy Business Intelligence and Software Protection solutions that enable companies to recover revenue and protect their software intellectual property by detecting, reporting, and preventing the misuse of their applications. Its patented CodeArmor® platform allows software vendors and enterprise organizations to harden their applications against theft and tampering, and to gain business intelligence on the unlicensed use of their software to uncover new revenue streams. V.i. Labs is privately held and is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. For more information, please visit www.vilabs.com.

About S.A.F.E. Corporation

S.A.F.E. Corporation is the leading firm providing software and services for detecting intellectual property theft, measuring software IP, and comparing software source code and object code. CodeSuite has been used by law firms for IP litigation cases around the world. CodeSuite has also been used by tax attorneys to track changes through multiple generations of programs in order to do accurate IP valuations. The corporate headquarters is in Cupertino, California.