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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN 

SOUTHERN DIVISION 

FORD MOTOR COMPANY, 

 Plaintiff, Case No. 15-cv-10628 

 (consolidated with Case No. 15-11624) 

v. Hon. Matthew F. Leitman 

VERSATA SOFTWARE, INC. et al.

 Defendants. 

__________________________________________________________________/ 

ORDER RESOLVING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO COMPEL IDENTITY 

OF ASSERTED COMBINATION TRADE SECRETS (ECF No. 775) 

 On March 3, 2021, Plaintiff Ford Motor Company filed a motion to compel 

Defendant Versata Software, Inc., to identify the elements of its asserted 

combination trade secrets. (See Mot., ECF No. 775.) Ford also sought leave to file 

two additional rebuttal expert reports. (See id.) The Court held a video hearing on 

the motion on September 28, 2021. For the reasons explained during the motion 

hearing, Ford’s motion is RESOLVED as follows: 

 With respect to Versata’s misappropriation of trade secret claim, the four trade 

secrets at issue that will be presented to the jury are: (1) The Grid, (2) 

Buildability, (3) Workspaces, and (4) MCA. 

 The elements of the Grid trade secret are: (1) The Dynamic Grid, (2) Error 

Resolution Workflow, (3) Rule Splaying and Overlap Prevention, (4) Local 

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Summary Codes, and (5) Grid Templates. The content of each of these 

elements of the Grid trade secret shall be determined solely with reference to 

the corresponding section(s) of Dr. Sam Malek’s expert report describing that 

element. (See Dr. Malek Rpt., ECF No. 430-3.) More specifically, the content 

of the Dynamic Grid element of the Grid trade secret shall be determined 

solely with reference to sections 6.2.1 – 6.2.3 of Dr. Malek’s report.1

 (See id., 

PageID.29499-29508.) The content of the Error Resolution Workflow 

element of the Grid trade secret shall be determined solely with reference to 

section 6.3.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29521-29522.) The 

content of the Rule Splaying and Overlap Prevention element of the Grid trade 

secret shall be determined solely with reference to section 6.4.1 of Dr. Malek’s 

report. (See id., PageID.29528-29531.) The content of the Local Summary 

Codes element of the Grid trade secret shall be determined solely with 

reference to section 6.5.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29534.) 

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 The table of contents to Dr. Malek’s expert report contains a numbering error. In 

the table of contents, Dr. Malek identifies section 5 of his report as the section that 

discusses the Grid trade secret. (See Dr. Malek Rpt., ECF No. 430-3, PageID.29466.) 

In fact, the section of Dr. Malek’s report that discusses the Grid is section 6. 

Likewise, Dr. Malek’s table of contents identifies section 6 as discussing 

Buildability, section 7 as discussing Workspaces, and section 8 as discussing MCA. 

(See id., PageID.29467-29468.) But those sections are actually found in the body of 

Dr. Malek’s report at sections 7, 8, and 9 respectively. To avoid any confusion, in 

this order, the Court will refer to the actual section numbers Dr. Malek used in the 

body of his report, and not the misnumbered sections referenced in Dr. Malek’s table 

of contents. 

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Finally, the content of the Grid Templates element of the Grid trade secret 

shall be determined solely with reference to section 6.7.1 of Dr. Malek’s 

report. (See id., PageID.29552-29553.) 

 The elements of the Buildability trade secret are: (1) Buildability Using 

Minimized Tries, (2) Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), (3) Filtering NonBuildable Rules, (4) Retiming, (5) Rule Layers and Manipulation, and (6) Use 

of Polar Sets to Represent Modeler Intent. The content of each of these 

elements of the Buildability trade secret shall be determined solely with 

reference to the corresponding section of Dr. Malek’s expert report describing 

that element. More specifically, the content of the Buildability Using 

Minimized Tries element of the Buildability trade secret shall be determined 

solely with reference to section 7.2.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., 

PageID.29557-29560.) The content of the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) 

element of the Buildability trade secret shall be determined solely with 

reference to section 7.3.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29567-

29571.) The content of the Filtering Non-Buildable Rules element of the 

Buildability trade secret shall be determined solely with reference to section 

7.4.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29580-29582.) The content of 

the Retiming element of the Buildability trade secret shall be determined 

solely with reference to section 7.5.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., 

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PageID.29587-29591.) The content of the Rule Layers and Manipulation 

element of the Buildability trade secret shall be determined solely with 

reference to section 7.6.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29595-

29601.) Finally, the content of the Use of Polar Sets to Represent Modeler 

Intent element of the Buildability trade secret shall be determined solely with 

reference to section 7.7.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29605-

29612.) 

 The elements of the Workspaces trade secret are: (1) Workspaces, (2) 

Engineering/Marketing Views and Flowthrough, and (3) Modeling Process. 

The content of each of these elements of the Workspaces trade secret shall be 

determined solely with reference to the corresponding section of Dr. Malek’s 

expert report describing that element. More specifically, the content of the 

Workspaces element of the Workspaces trade secret shall be determined 

solely with reference to section 8.2.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., 

PageID.29622-29630.) The content of the Engineering/Marketing Views and 

Flowthrough element of the Workspaces trade secret shall be determined 

solely with reference to section 8.3.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., 

PageID.29635-29639.) Finally, the content of the Modelling Process element 

of the Workspaces trade secret shall be determined solely with reference to 

section 8.4.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., PageID.29643-29645.) 

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 The elements of the MCA trade secret are: (1) Automatic Generation of 

Accurate and Augmented Configurations (i.e. Feature Strings) as Baselines 

for Parts and Materials Forecasting, (2) Use of Feature Optionalities in 

Feature String Generation to Isolate Parts Cost, and (3) Inclusion of Dynamic 

Effectivity for Feature Strings. The content of each of these elements of the 

MCA trade secret shall be determined solely with reference to the 

corresponding section of Dr. Malek’s expert report describing that element. 

More specifically, the content of the Automatic Generation of Accurate and 

Augmented Configurations (i.e. Feature Strings) as Baselines for Parts and 

Materials Forecasting element of the MCA trade secret shall be determined 

solely with reference to section 9.2.1 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See id., 

PageID.29649-29651.) The content of the Automatic Generation of Accurate 

and Augmented Configurations (i.e. Feature Strings) as Baselines for Parts 

and Materials Forecasting element of the MCA trade secret shall be 

determined solely with reference to section 9.2.2 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See 

id., PageID.29651-29653.) Finally, the content of the Inclusion of Dynamic 

Effectivity for Feature Strings element of the MCA trade secret shall be 

determined solely with reference to section 9.2.3 of Dr. Malek’s report. (See 

id., PageID.29653.) 

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 Ford may serve on Versata the “technical” rebuttal expert report and the 

“damages” rebuttal expert report identified in its motion by no later than 

November 12, 2021. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

 s/Matthew F. Leitman 

 MATTHEW F. LEITMAN 

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

Dated: September 28, 2021 

 I hereby certify that a copy of the foregoing document was served upon the 

parties and/or counsel of record on September 28, 2021, by electronic means and/or 

ordinary mail. 

 s/Holly A. Monda 

 Case Manager 

 (810) 341-9764 

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