Dr. Direen has more than 40 years of experience as an engineer designing, developing and innovating systems in the electronics and software industry. He has substantial experience as an expert witness, supporting counsel and testifying in complex patent infringement cases.
He has reverse engineered a variety of complex systems, including media players, modems, modem compression algorithms, Coriolis mass flow meters and database systems, to support patent infringement cases, producing detailed claim charts and expert reports. He has discovered and analyzed complex digital signal processing algorithms and other pertinent operations within these products.
His expert witness work spans multiple patent cases, including encryption and decryption methods for databases, signal processing within a Coriolis flow meter, surveillance systems, security systems and embedded control systems. He has a strong knack for explaining complex systems to laypeople, and has testified in three patent trials and eight depositions.
Dr. Direen has taught engineering courses at the US Air Force Academy and the University of Colorado. With the Academy's unmanned aerial systems research group he designs autonomous control systems, image processing algorithms, and GPS-denied navigation using GPGPUs for UAVs and drones. His embedded mission control software runs unmanned, autonomous and cooperative aircraft on target search, acquisition and tracking missions. It captures and processes images of potential ground targets, navigates without GPS, fuses sensor data, communicates with the aircraft's avionics, ground stations and other aircraft, and makes the command and control decisions needed to carry out the mission.
He is also developing a wheelchair control system that lets a person with quadriplegia drive the chair with head movements, working with a neurosurgeon and therapists to better understand the needs and capabilities of people with spinal cord injuries. The goal is to go beyond wheelchair control to a range of support systems for people with quadriplegia and related injuries.
Dr. Direen is an inventor on three patents.
Areas of expertise
- Electrical and electronic engineering, including digital, analog and RF circuits
- Software engineering and systems
- Control systems, including embedded control systems
- High performance computing: multi-threading, shared memory and GPGPU
- Signal processing and sensors
- Image processing
- UAV and drone autonomous control
- Intellectual property litigation and patent infringement analysis
- Product software and hardware reverse engineering
Litigation support
- More than 20 cases involving intellectual property, patent infringement, patent validity, IPRs and CBMs
- More than 58 product reverse engineering cases involving patent infringement
- Testified in three patent trials and eight depositions
Education
- Ph.D., Electronics Engineering / Control Systems, University of Colorado, 1996
Thesis: Optimization of Wavelet Basis Controllers for Nonlinear Systems with Applications to Learning Control Systems - B.S.E.E., University of California, Irvine, 1982
Certifications and training
- Professional Engineer, Colorado State Board of Licensure, License 43218 (June 2009 to present)
- SEAK expert witness training:
- How to Excel and Succeed as an Expert Witness in Patent Cases
- How to Excel at Your Expert Witness Deposition