Reborn in 2010, the AI ​​in my mind is too powerful.

Chen Yiran never considered himself a business genius; he felt his talent lay in luck.

First of all, the location of his birth was quite good. He was born into a harmonious family in Beijing, and his parents caught the wave of reform and bought enough property in Beijing for him to live comfortably.

He came to the United States to study alone, and his grades were a disgrace to Chinese students. However, in his sophomore year, a senior he was on good terms with transferred to the University of Champaign and handed over several of Delaware's manufacturing connections to him, which made him quite a bit of money.

Later, when he arrived in Los Angeles, some friends opened a private Texas Hold'em game. When they lacked funds, they asked him to invest, and he made a lot of money from it.

Later, a classmate who studied economics told him to believe in the power of Chinese "aunties," so he obediently started buying gold.

In short, he had a smooth life in his past life by following his friends. The only business he owned on his own was a murder mystery game shop, which he ran out of hobby.

Then, as everyone knows, after two years of popularity, murder mystery games became extremely competitive. Most murder mystery game venues couldn't even afford to hire proper staff and relied entirely on attracting enthusiasts to come out of passion.

Chen Yiran is somewhat conscientious; he even gives his store's DMs "five insurances and one fund," which makes the store's employees extremely grateful and work exceptionally hard, constantly inviting people to join him in various groups.

However, things didn't improve much. Although the books showed a profit of one or two thousand yuan per month, that was because the murder mystery game shop belonged to Chen Yiran, and the rent was actually a loss.

After his rebirth, although he still mainly wanted to rely on Jasmine's skills to make his fortune, his previous success had given him a slight illusion that those big businessmen weren't all that great. It also gave him the illusion that his business and management talents were also worth considering.

However, two months after meeting Icahn, Chen Yiran came to a clearer understanding of herself.

Doing business is too tiring, the pressure is too great.

New Thinking and Kai Deng have clearly reached a certain understanding, or even conspired together.

Within two months, they began launching a frenzy of legal battles against Flow.

Catherine created a special email folder called "External Litigation" in the backend, and it already has hundreds of emails in two months.

It all started with New Thinking's actions that day; on the same day, they filed filings in three federal courts.

The Northern District of California is the most common choice for civil litigation, and Synopsys certainly wouldn't overlook it. Local Silicon Valley judges are very experienced in handling patent disputes between technology companies.

Synaptics and Cadence have filed several complete patent infringement lawsuits, listing fourteen patents, ranging from DeepFlow's parallel computing scheduling architecture to Grey's placement optimization module. Each patent is concisely stated as allegedly infringed, without specifying what exactly was infringed.

In US patent litigation, this type of writing is called a notification lawsuit, and its purpose is to trigger the court's schedule. A Markman hearing is a hearing held by the court to explain the specific meaning of each patent claim. It originates from the 1996 Supreme Court ruling in Markman v. Wiswell Instruments, Inc., which determined that the interpretation of patent claims is a legal matter and is decided by the judge.

Once the judge sets a date for Markman's hearing, the case will automatically enter a twelve- to eighteen-month trial process. The lawyers for both sides will spend months arguing in court just to clarify the scope of protection for each of the fourteen patents.

Synaptics and Cadbury simultaneously filed the same patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

The Eastern District of Texas is known throughout the United States for its plaintiff-friendly courts, with quick hearings and even faster injunctions. Synaptics' goal here isn't to win, but to obtain an injunction as quickly as possible, even if it's only for ninety days.

An injunction prohibiting a defendant from continuing to sell products that may infringe on patents before a judgment can have a significant deterrent effect at the client's contract negotiation table.

In Delaware, there's no rush. All tech companies register there, so there's no dispute over jurisdiction. Synopsys can steadily and meticulously interpret the scope of each patent to its limit.

This was all planned, specifically to be carried out across three regions of the United States, which means that the lawyers hired by Chen Yiran would spend a lot of energy, time, and travel expenses.

Furthermore, to ensure everything goes smoothly, local lawyers in each region also need to be hired to ensure smooth communication with the local courts and to anticipate the preferences and customary procedures of the local judges. This is another significant expense, and one that cannot be avoided.

Three indictments, three battlegrounds, three sets of local lawyers to hire. Each set means new travel expenses, new discovery procedures, and new analyses of judges' preferences.

Before these lawsuits have even gone to trial, NewThink and Kaiden have already started coming up with new tactics. They have filed a lawsuit against Chen Yiran for infringement of trade secrets.

They asserted that the machine model architecture used by Tiya and Grey was substantially similar to the research projects conducted by Kaiden within its Digital Design Technology Department.

This is also disgusting, because the most terrifying part of trade secret litigation is not the arguments in court, but the discovery of evidence.

They don't need to prove that Chen Yiran actually stole anything; they only need to list a few factors that raise reasonable suspicion in the indictment.

For example, Chen Yiran's development speed far exceeded the normal industry pace, and many of the core employees in his team had previously worked at Synaptics and Cadence. The judge might then approve the discovery phase, where the legal teams of both companies could request FlowEDA to hand over all source code, all development logs, and all internal emails, which would then be reviewed line by line by technical experts over several months.

This doesn't mean they can simply keep these documents for themselves, but FlowEDA has to spend a huge amount of manpower to ensure all internal documents are in perfect order to pass their inspections.

Simply put, company employees have to be careful even when speaking in internal groups, which naturally affects work efficiency.

Subsequently, the two companies went further, launching attacks against Chen Yiran's employees.

Zhou Feng was the first person to receive a summons. Kai Deng claimed that he had obtained human resources and proprietary technology through improper means when he left the company, and listed him as a co-defendant in the trade secret case.

After that, one by one, everyone who had worked for the two companies received a lawyer's letter.

Although Chen Yiran explicitly told all employees that the company's lawyers would agree to help them handle the matter, this would inevitably cause unrest within the company.

Subsequently, copyright infringement and ITC 337 investigations (for using infringing technology outside the United States) were also initiated. Both companies stated very publicly that they expected to incur a deficit by the end of the year, and that all profits and previous cash would be used to hire lawyers to fight the lawsuit.

They didn't even have any reason to file for an antitrust investigation, although ironically, the two companies still hold the top two market shares, making them the real monopolists.

However, their lawyers targeted Deepflow, arguing that Deepflow adheres to the critical infrastructure principle.

Chen Yiran refuses to authorize others in order to monopolize the market.

This made Ted laugh in exasperation. He explained to Chen Yiran that this was practically a tantrum.

US law is very favorable to intellectual property holders; they have the right to refuse to license their technology to others, which is a fundamental right under the patent and copyright systems.

Antitrust issues only arise when companies leverage their advantages to bundle sales and sign exclusive agreements.

Having gone through all that, Chen Yiran actually understood that, strictly speaking, he was practically infallible.

But the lawyer fees are what really terrify you.

In just over two months, more than three million yuan in legal fees has already been spent, and this is only the beginning; both sides' lawyers are just preparing. The battle hasn't even officially begun yet. Later in court, they'll need to hire specialized, eloquent lawyers!

In short, Chen Yiran needs to prepare at least tens of millions of dollars in legal fees every year.

Fortunately, Chen Yiran's stock positions are performing exceptionally well, and Kiki has also been launched, meaning the company now has three mature commercial products.

Chen Yiran could afford to pay the compensation. So when the two companies approached him asking if he could authorize Deepflow to settle the matter, he immediately refused.

Chen Yiran felt that no matter what, it was now a battle between him and Icahn against Xin Si and Kai Deng, and the advantage lay with him.

His collaboration with Icahn, involving incredibly complex legal paperwork, has been finalized by both sides.

Icahn did indeed have someone plant traps in the legal documents, but Ted rejected them all one by one.

Similarly, his ulterior motives were discovered by the other party's technical consultant and rejected one by one.

By the end of November, both parties had begun preparations for the formal establishment of the company.

Then, unexpectedly, Icahn started doing some fancy tricks.

In late November, Icahn suddenly gave an interview to a financial media outlet, explaining his reasons for acquiring shares in Mingdao. He said with a smile that he had originally wanted to talk to a new EDA company, but they couldn't reach an agreement.

The next day, all the news on Wall Street was that Carl Icahn had given up on Ming and was preparing to cut his losses and leave.

That same day, the stock price, which had already stabilized, experienced a sharp drop. Instead of selling, Icahn took the opportunity to buy up shares.

For two consecutive days, they acquired another 6% of the shares.

When Chen Yiran heard the news at home, she was completely stunned.

When I called to inquire, they started dodging the question again, saying things like charging more upfront would result in a lower price during privatization. But clearly, Icahn was starting to object to the terms he had previously discussed with Chen Yiran.

Chen Yiran felt a little helpless; he felt the pressure was mounting.

He originally thought that as long as Tiya developed well, after acquiring Mingdao, he could immediately get a large amount of money back by utilizing the existing sales channels.

Looking back now, it seems like we've been tricked!

I think I understand now. Icahn might have acted on impulse, or it might have been part of his plan all along. After the other two companies threatened us with lawsuits, we desperately needed to secure Mingdao's services, take control of the design-side EDA, and recoup our investment.

Is he trying to sell us Mingdao's business? It seems our best option right now is to act quickly and decisively, and secure Mingdao's deal first.

Chen Yiran was a little confused: "This doesn't make sense. In fact, according to our previous plan, we would have made more money by privatizing and then listing."

[Actually, I did a rough calculation. Privatization, plus asset divestiture and relisting, would take at least 3 to 4 years. Maybe he thought that was too long? He may have decided from the beginning that if Synaptics and Cadbury didn't target us, he would cooperate with us. If Synaptics and Cadbury dragged us into a mess, he would come and rip us off.]

"Damn it, if I'm not going to fight for pride, I won't buy it. We'll develop it slowly; it'll just take a couple more years. He'll just have to wait and see if Director Ming gets stuck with this mess."

We need to be rational. Icahn will eventually have to negotiate with us. It's a game of strategy now, seeing if he's afraid of losing money, or if we're afraid of burning through legal fees.

"Sigh, never mind, let's get to work. Technical skills are always the most important thing. As long as we run fast enough, the lawyers' fees won't catch up with us."

Chen Yiran reluctantly took out several bottles of glucose and then went to the pool to start working.

That's right. Due to the immense pressure of the past two months, the company's employees' efficiency has been extremely unstable, so he's resorting to his own bursts of energy. He's now skipping outdated energy supplements like chocolate cake and is directly drinking glucose to replenish his energy while cooling down in the swimming pool.

Reality is always more surreal than movies. Chen Yiran was prepared to fight to the death with all parties, but then, something dramatic happened again.

A week later, Gao Dewei called him furtively.

"Boss, I'll come to your house later and introduce you to someone."