Courtesy of JonnyQwan Raging Bull # 339987:
From McAuley's deposition....
Very lengthy, but a good read....
Interesting background information about McAuley's background. VERY impressive!
All questions (unless otherwise marked as Mr Dossas, are from Jennifer Gossain, representing Interwoven.
All answers, unless otherwise marked are from Aubrey McAuley, the inventor of 744/629 patents
I am very impressed with McAuley's background and his testimony, under some hostile examination:
Starts a few minutes into over 5 hours of direct examination by Ms Gossain. There is much... much more. This is but a small part of the deposition.
A. Well, the -- I founded Adhesive Media in
21
October 1993, and in -- several years later,
22
approximately 1995, we split the company into two
23
entities, Adhesive Software and Eden Matrix Online
24
Services. And Adhesive Software -- well, I stayed with
25
Adhesive Software. So Adhesive Software then lasted
1
until 2000, approximately, and after dot-com bubble
2
burst, and then I was at EnFacet for a brief period of
3
time, and then at Vertical after that.
4
Q. Okay.
5
A. And I was doing essentially the same job the
6
entire time, working with the same products and the same
7
clients, for different employers, so that's why it's one
8
entry on my resume.
9
Q. Okay. So when you founded Adhesive Media, were
10
you the only founder or were there other people
11
involved?
12
A. No. There were other people involved there.
13
Q. Who were the other people?
14
A. John C. Herzer.
15
Q. Anyone else?
16
A. He was my partner.
17
Q. Okay. Was there anyone else?
18
A. No. Well, there were -- I had employees.
19
Q. How many employees did you have?
20
A. At the beginning? One.
21
Q. Who was that employee?
22
A. Patrick Price.
23
Q. And by the time you time split off Adhesive
24
Media into the two companies you mentioned, Adhesive
25
Software and Eden Matrix, how many employees did you
19
1
have at that time?
2
A. I'm not sure exact -- the exact number, but it
3
was probably four or five employees that were
4
specifically working for Adhesive.
5
Q. Adhesive Software?
6
A. And that began to grow rapidly.
7
Q. Okay.
8
A. Yes, Adhesive Software, correct.
9
Q. Okay.
10
A. And -- and we grew Adhesive Software up to the
11
point where we had 50 or so employees before the dot-com
12
bubble burst.
13
Q. So by the time you got to around the 2000 time
14
frame, Adhesive Software had about 50 employees?
15
A. Yes. Correct.
16
Q. That's really impressive.
17
A. We had the 6th Floor of this building, 100
18
Congress.
19
Q. Oh. Oh, really.
20
A. Yeah.
21
Q. Okay. You're revisiting your --
22
A. Yeah.
23
Q. -- office. Okay. So what about Eden Matrix
24
would -- was that company involved?
25
A. Eden Matrix was an online service company. We
20
1
were the -- Eden Matrix was the second commercial
2
Internet service provider in Austin. And was a very
3
different line of business from software development.
4
The software development actually started as an offshoot
5
of the online service. The online service came first,
6
and the demand for software development on the Internet
7
was so great at the time, because nobody knew anything
8
about the Internet.
9
Q. Uh-huh.
10
A. We pioneered the Internet, and there were a lot
11
of things that we did that nobody had ever done before,
12
including developing the -- the beginnings of this
13
application that was later became a patent.
14
Q. Okay.
15
A. So it started very early on.
16
Q. Yeah. I think I see on your LinkedIn profile
17
that there's a lot of milestones that we now take for
18
granted. And yeah, it's definitely true, because back
19
then it was so hard to type in these HTML codes. So
20
having, kind of like, I guess, how would you describe
21
it, is it a component-based kind of programming to
22
create Web sites? Is that --
23
MR. DOSSAS: Is that a question?
24
Objection, vague and ambiguous.
25
A. I don't know. What -- what exactly are you
asking? I mean, yes, I -- there was -- there were no
2
tools for developing of Web applications --
3
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) Uh-huh.
4
A. -- in those days. There were static documents,
5
and there was a specification for CGI interface, but
6
nobody had any software. You basically had to write
7
everything from scratch when we started.
8
Q. Okay. So you developed --
9
A. And we developed the tool set that helped
10
facilitate the application development on the Web.
11
Q. Okay. And how does it help facilitate the
12
application development?
13
MR. DOSSAS: Objection, vague and
14
ambiguous. How does what? I'm sorry, I just state --
15
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) You can answer.
16
A. Can you explain what it is you're trying to
17
find out?
18
Q. Sure. You said that --
19
A. As long as you're clear that we're not talking
20
about my patent here. At the time, we were developing
21
basic tools for automating the development of Web, Web
22
sites. We had several clients that were creating
23
e-commerce and wanted to create e-commerce solutions on
24
the net, and nobody had ever built e-commerce solutions
25
on the net, Internet, before. We were one of the first
companies to developed e-commerce solutions on the
2
Internet. International Golf Outlet was one of the big
3
companies that we did. Compubooks was another one of
4
the big companies that we did. Compubooks was the --
5
basically the model that Amazon used for their business
6
when they started, and they eventually ended up
7
acquiring Compubooks because he didn't have nearly the
8
backing of Jeff Bezos. So -- I mean, that's where we
9
were. We were there before Amazon, before Google,
10
before any of those companies; we were already
11
developing these technologies.
12
Q. Okay. So you mentioned this golf company and
13
Compubooks. When did you develop these Web sites for --
14
MR. DOSSAS: Objection, mischaracterizes
15
his testimony, your question does.
16
A. Okay. No, I'm not sure I understand the
17
question.
18
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) When did you first get
19
IGolf -- and I apologize if I got the company wrong --
20
A. International Golf Outlet.
21
Q. International --
22
A. The Web site was IGoGolf.com.
23
Q. Oh, great -- great name.
24
A. Yeah.
25
Q. And when did you develop this Web site using
this tool that you did?
2
A. '94.
3
Q. '94. Okay. And what about Compubooks?
4
A. Yeah, in the same time frame.
5
Q. In the time -- same time frame. And this tool
6
that you mentioned, did you have a name for it?
7
A. At the time, well, when we first started
8
developing it, we didn't realize that it was going to be
9
a tool at all, so no, we -- we developed software for
10
these particular Web sites. And then that -- but we got
11
so many requests for similar things that we realized
12
that we had to create a reusable tool set, and that's
13
when we created WebOS.
14
Q. And around what time period would you say WebOS
15
was developed, I guess, matured enough to call it a tool
16
set?
17
A. I'm not sure. I mean, it started in -- it
18
starts -- it started in 1994, and I'm not sure when we
19
produced the first WebOS material to package the
20
software as a product.
21
Q. Okay.
22
A. It might have been 1995 by that point.
23
Q. Okay. And you mentioned "we" developed this
24
WebOS tool. Who else assisted you?
25
A. Who worked for me?
Q. I guess, who developed --
2
A. Who were my partners?
3
Q. Yeah. Was it just you --
4
A. When I say "we," I'm talking about the company.
5
Q. Okay. Adhesive Software?
6
A. Yes.
7
Q. And who were the developers involved, other
8
than yourself?
9
A. Well, you want me to list all 50 employees?
10
Q. Were they all --
11
A. 40 of them were software developers and
12
customer engineers.
13
Q. Well, for those employees, was it just their
14
role to use this tool to help your clients actually
15
create their Web sites?
16
A. About half were core developers and about half
17
were customer solutions.
18
Q. And what do you mean by "core developer"?
19
A. Working on the tool -- the base tool set and
20
not interfacing directly with customers.
21
Q. Okay.
22
A. Whereas the other 20 were actually working on
23
specific customer projects.
24
Q. Using the WebOS tool?
25
A. Yeah. Correct
Q. So about half them were working on developing
2
the WebOS tool and, you know, enhancing it or whatever
3
and --
4
A. Right.
5
Q. -- and the other half were helping customers?
6
A. Correct.
7
Q. Okay. And I just want to clarify, so around
8
this time frame, I think we're talking about the 1995
9
time frame when WebOS has become a tool that you're
10
using to help these customers, did you already have
11
about 40 to 50 employees at the time?
12
A. No, that came later.
13
Q. Okay. So then this was a time that you had
14
about four to five people?
15
A. Right.
16
Q. And who -- do you recall who those people were?
17
A. Yeah. Let's see, we had a salesperson named
18
Scotty McNutt. We had a software developer named
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Kenneth Scott. We had a software developer named Jim
20
McDonald. And I don't remember the other -- who else
21
was with us yet by that point. The company grew by
22
leaps and bounds, and so I would not be able to list off
23
all the names of the employees. But those were some --
24
a couple of the early ones.
25
Q. Okay.
A. The gentleman I mentioned earlier, Patrick
2
Price, was with -- was no longer with us by that
3
point. He was one of -- one of my first programmers and
4
-- but he didn't last.
5
Q. Okay. And so out of these people that you
6
mentioned, Scotty McNutt, Ken Scott, Jim McDonald, did
7
they all move on to EnFacet and Vertical later with you?
8
MR. DOSSAS: Excuse me. I didn't hear one
9
word. Could you read back the --
10
THE REPORTER: Move on to "something" and
11
Vertical. I didn't understand it either.
12
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) Did they all move on to
13
EnFacet and Vertical?
14
MR. DOSSAS: Oh, "EnFacet," that's the
15
word. Okay.
16
A. Some of them did. Most of them did not.
17
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) Okay.
18
A. The shift from Adhesive to EnFacet was a vast
19
downsizing.
20
Q. Okay. Can you describe EnFacet did?
21
A. EnFacet was a reseller of the technology. They
22
had a license to resell the -- the tool set, and so when
23
Adhesive failed, we went to work for EnFacet.
24
Q. Okay.
25
A. Because they had clients that were using the
tool set, and so we were able to find work there
2
continuing the product, to support and sell the product
3
to customers.
4
Q. I just want to clarify when you say "tool set"
5
and "the product," you mean the WebOS product; is that
6
correct?
7
A. No. By that point, we no longer owned the name
8
"WebOS" anymore.
9
Q. Okay.
10
A. We sold it.
11
Q. Who did you sell the WebOS name to?
12
A. A company called "My WebOS." Apparently, they
13
didn't do a very good trademark search before they
14
formed the company.
15
Q. Did My WebOS use the WebOS tool that you
16
developed?
17
A. No. It had nothing to do with us whatsoever.
18
We just sold them the name and domain.
19
Q. So after you sold the name, did you rename the
20
WebOS tool to something else?
21
A. Yes.
22
Q. What did you rename it to?
23
A. SiteFlash.
24
Q. And --
25
A. There were several different versions, though,
and there was BizFlash, SiteFlash, NewsFlash,
2
VarsityFlash. We basically went after vertical markets
3
with repackaged versions of the same tool set aimed at a
4
specific business.
5
Q. Okay. So all of these tools are basically
6
WebOS but just renamed to target a specific area; is
7
that correct?
8
A. No. They used the same core engine. They did
9
not use the same -- they looked and functioned entirely
10
different to the customer.
11
Q. Okay. And by the "core engine," do you mean
12
the WebOS tool?
13
A. Well --
14
Q. I understand where --
15
A. It's hard to draw the line exactly. Yeah.
16
Q. Okay.
17
A. The -- by the -- you know, by 2000, we were
18
using, obviously, the latest version, which included the
19
technology in our patent application.
20
Q. Okay. What was the first version of WebOS that
21
you developed?
22
MR. DOSSAS: Objection, vague and
23
ambiguous.
24
A. You already asked me that question, the first
25
version of WebOS, I already answered it.
MR. DOSSAS: And asked and answered.
2
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) Did you have a version
3
number?
4
A. Did I have a version number?
5
Q. Associated with that first product?
6
A. Yes.
7
Q. Well, I guess that's my question: What do you
8
recall --
9
A. The first time we probably talked about -- we
10
kept version numbers for every revision that we did, and
11
probably the first major release was WebOS 2.0. I -- by
12
the time we had any technology -- any of the -- well, I
13
would say the version numbers went all the way up to
14
Version 7, I think was the last version I remember. And
15
by that point, it was called "SiteFlash."
16
Q. Okay. So approximately what time period was
17
WebOS 2.0 around?
18
A. I --
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MR. DOSSAS: Objection, vague to around or
20
introduced?
21
A. It was around for a long time.
22
MR. DOSSAS: I'm sorry.
23
A. I mean, were you --
24
Q. (By Ms. Gossain) When was it introduced then?
25
A. I don't recall exactly the date it was.
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