Opinion ID: 1059041
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Pointers

Text: The chancellor found that the defendants did not misappropriate MicroStrategy's SmartPointer design or the design and implementation of its StrongPointer. The chancellor concluded that before Li was employed by MicroStrategy, he understood the concept of controlling memory leaks with pointers and was familiar with several reference sources that describe how these tools can be designed and implemented. The chancellor also found that a knowledgeable C++ programmer could design a SmartPointer or a StrongPointer without having any of the reference sources in front of the programmer. In comparing the SmartPointers at issue, the chancellor found that the Actuate SmartPointer has a fundamentally different design from MicroStrategy's.... They have different template arguments and Actuate's design is invasive while MicroStrategy's [design] is not. The chancellor also concluded that although the two SmartPointers shared one unique feature, this feature was a direct result of other design decisions. With regard to the StrongPointers, the chancellor found incredible Hutz's assumption that Li worked from his memory of MicroStrategy's source code when designing Actuate's StrongPointers. The above conclusions culminated in the chancellor's factual finding that the pointers Li designed for Actuate were not based on MicroStrategy's pointers but rather on public sources that he had before him when he drafted the pointers in question as well as his general knowledge of pointer technology. We hold that these factual findings, which are conclusive in this appeal, fully support the chancellor's determination that MicroStrategy failed to prove that the defendants misappropriated MicroStrategy's pointer technology.