In 1995, attorney Jeffrey Chanin, a partner at Keker & Van Nest, took on what appeared to be a simple trade secrets case. Little did he know that the litigation would turn into a seven-year battle with the flavor of an espionage movie.
Chanin represented Cadence Design Software Systems, Inc., a software-based firm in San Jose, in a trade secrets and copyright infringement case against Avant! Corp., a smaller competitor, over stolen source code for software to create computer chips.