CASE NO. 5:17-CV-00561-WHO (LB)

NISENBAUM DECLARATION ISO DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO AMEND

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JJENNIFER LEE TAYLOR (SBN 161368)

JTaylor@mofo.com

ROBIN L. BREWER (SBN 253686)

RBrewer@mofo.com

JOYCE LIOU (SBN 277720)

JLiou@mofo.com

MICHAEL J. GUO (SBN 284917)

MGuo@mofo.com

AMANDA D. PHILLIPS (SBN 305614)

APhillips@mofo.com

MORRISON & FOERSTER LLP

425 Market Street

San Francisco, California 94105-2482

Telephone: (415) 268-7000

Facsimile: (415) 268-7522

Attorneys for Defendants

UBIQUITI NETWORKS, INC. and 

UBIQUITI NETWORKS INTERNATIONAL 

LIMITED

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

SYNOPSYS, INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

UBIQUITI NETWORKS, INC., UBIQUITI 

NETWORKS INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, 

CHING-HAN TSAI, and DOES 1-20,

inclusive,

Defendants.

Case No. 5:17-cv-00561-WHO

DECLARATION OF HARTLEY 

NISENBAUM IN SUPPORT OF 

DEFENDANTS UBIQUITI 

NETWORKS, INC. AND 

UBIQUITI NETWORKS

INTERNATIONAL LIMITED’S 

OPPOSITION TO SYNOPSYS, 

INC.’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO 

FILE THIRD AMENDED 

COMPLAINT

Date: June 6, 2018

Time: 2:00 p.m.

Place: Courtroom 2, 17th Floor

Judge: Honorable William H. Orrick

UBIQUITI NETWORKS, INC. and UBIQUITI 

NETWORKS INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, 

Counterclaimants,

v.

SYNOPSYS, INC.,

Counterdefendant.

Case 3:17-cv-00561-WHO Document 195-9 Filed 05/16/18 Page 1 of 4
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CASE NO. 5:17-CV-00561-WHO (LB)

NISENBAUM DECLARATION ISO DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO AMEND

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I, Hartley Nisenbaum, declare as follows:

1. I am employed by Ubiquiti Networks, Inc., (“Ubiquiti”) as Executive Vice 

President of Legal Affairs. I submit this declaration in support of Defendants Ubiquiti Networks, 

Inc. and Ubiquiti Networks International Limited’s (“UNIL”) Opposition to Synopsys, Inc.’s 

Motion for Leave to File Third Amended Complaint. I have personal knowledge of the facts 

contained in this declaration. If called as a witness, I could and would testify competently as 

follows.

2. Ubiquiti and UNIL were sued by Plaintiff Synopsys, Inc. (“Synopsys”) on Friday, 

February 3, 2017. The next business day, Monday, February 6, 2017, I sent out a litigation hold 

on behalf of Ubiquiti and UNIL. The litigation hold recipients included Defendant Ching-Han 

Tsai, Sheng-Feng Wang, Chi-Hsueh Huang, Hung-Lun Lian, Ya-Chau Yang, Yi-Te Lee, ChangChing Yang, and Hua-Lin Hsu, among others. Subsequent to the distribution of the litigation 

hold notice, Defendant Tsai was contacted and asked to make sure his team understood how 

important a litigation hold notice is. Defendant Tsai confirmed that he stressed the importance of 

the litigation hold to his team. 

3. When I sent the litigation hold, I expected it would be observed by those receiving 

it, and I had no reason to believe anyone would fail to comply with the litigation hold and destroy 

evidence. To the contrary, I had every indication that they understood their obligation to retain 

documents. 

4. As part of discovery in the case, Defendant Tsai’s two computers and an external 

drive were imaged in Fall 2017. During a forensic inspection of those devices in December 2017, 

Ubiquiti discovered that Defendant Tsai had used a program called CCleaner to wipe portions of 

the external drive, leaving only a single virtual machine. 

5. In mid-January 2018, Ubiquiti discovered on one of Defendant Tsai’s computers 

two personal Skype conversations that Defendant Tsai started in 2013 with computer engineers 

that he recruited to work on the ASIC design project at UNIL. The Skype conversations 

continued into 2014, well after those computer engineers started to work for UNIL. Among other 

things, the Skype conversations contained references to wiping computers, erasing Skype 

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CASE NO. 5:17-CV-00561-WHO (LB)

NISENBAUM DECLARATION ISO DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO AMEND

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conversations, and using hacked software. True and correct copies of the Skype conversations 

are attached as Exhibits 1 and 2.

6. After discovering the wiped drive and the Skype conversations, Ubiquiti realized 

that Defendant Tsai had not been honest during its investigations in 2016 and 2017. Ubiquiti also 

learned that Defendant Tsai had lied to Ubiquiti management regarding the use of Synopsys 

software in Taiwan (including his own use of the software). Ubiquiti also realized that Defendant 

Tsai had not complied with the company’s express instructions in its litigation hold and likely had

instructed an unknown number of ASIC team members to destroy documents. Ubiquiti decided 

that more had to be done to address the situation. 

7. In early February 2018, Ubiquiti reminded the Taiwanese engineers of their duty 

to preserve evidence and to comply with company policies against violating intellectual property 

rights, and I circulated another copy of the litigation hold notice to the ASIC team members in 

Taiwan. All of the Taiwanese team members also certified that they would abide by all company 

policies going forward and they were told that they would be terminated if they violated any 

company policy going forward.

8. Out of an abundance of caution, after Judge Beeler ordered forensic inspections of 

computers of certain Taiwanese team members and after the parties subsequently stipulated to a 

forensic inspection protocol, on February 26, 2018, Ubiquiti decided to image the devices in 

Taiwan without providing any advance notice to any of the Taiwanese ASIC team members to 

prevent any additional use of CCleaner or any similar “wiping” program by Defendant Tsai’s 

team members in Taiwan. 

9. Ubiquiti contracted with Epiq Systems, Inc., a forensic vendor, who sent a forensic 

specialist from Hong Kong to our Taipei office. Because he could not image all of the devices 

simultaneously, the devices of the engineers most likely to have relevant information as 

previously identified by Synopsys, including those of Ya-Chau Yang, were imaged the first day. 

The remaining devices were imaged over the course of the week. The engineers were not 

informed prior to Epiq’s arrival in our office that their devices would be collected and imaged, 

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CASE NO. 5:17-CV-00561-WHO (LB)

NISENBAUM DECLARATION ISO DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO AMEND

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and they were not told the order in which devices would be collected and imaged during the 

week.

10. Despite these efforts, Ubiquiti learned from reviewing Synopsys’ motion for leave 

to amend of Synopsys’ allegations that materials were “suspiciously” deleted from certain UNIL 

engineers’ devices in February and March, including during the week that Epiq was in our Taipei 

office collecting and imaging devices. 

11. The day after Synopsys filed its motion, Ubiquiti suspended Defendant Ching-Han 

Tsai, Chi-Hsueh Huang, Hung-Lun Lian, Ya-Chau Yang, Yi-Te Lee, Chang-Ching Yang, and 

Hua-Lin Hsu, all of whom are implicated by Synopsys’ allegations of spoliation, pending a 

determination of whether the allegations in the proposed Third Amended Complaint are true. 

That same day, Ubiquiti also asked Epiq to investigate Synopsys’ spoliation allegations in the 

proposed amended complaint. As soon as Epiq’s investigation is completed, Ubiquiti will 

determine the appropriate course of action with respect to the suspended employees, which likely 

will be termination if Synopsys’ allegations about them are substantiated.

12. To make sure it understands the full scope of the ASIC team’s conduct, Ubiquiti 

also engaged the leading forensic firm, Stroz Friedberg, to conduct an independent forensic 

investigation of the devices of all ASIC team members, as well as the servers and storage array 

located in Taiwan. This investigation may lead to additional disciplinary action against the 

suspended ASIC team members.

I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of the United States that the foregoing is true 

and correct.

Executed this 16th day of May, 2018, in New York, New York. 

By: /s/ Hartley Nisenbaum

HARTLEY NISENBAUM

Case 3:17-cv-00561-WHO Document 195-9 Filed 05/16/18 Page 4 of 4