Mr. Smoot has 35 years’ experience in Computer Science, Software Product Development and eCommerce Technology. Mr. Smoot has been employed or retained as an independent consultant in eCommerce, telecommunications, manufacturing automation, electric power, oil and gas delivery, medical research, civil electronics design and fabrication, military and intelligence electronics and financial services. He has experience with more than 50 conventional programming, content description, database and markup languages. As a representative to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) committees, Mr. Smoot participated in defining the American standard data encryption and communication protocols for layers 2, 4 and 6 of the OSI model on the X3T1 and X3T1.1 committees.

For more than ten years Mr. Smoot held leadership roles in the design and development of electronic products including National Security Agency (NSA) certified high-speed encryption devices, two families of personal computers, and robot automated factories. His experience includes chip, circuit and system level engineering for both software and hardware. Mr. Smoot has been an independent consultant for 23 of the last 25 years and a consultant with global consultants Avanade, Inc. Mr. Smoot has represented other companies such as Apple Computer as their consulting expert on a variety of technical assignments.

Testifying Experience

Mr. Smoot has 6 years’ experience providing expert testimony for patent litigation, forensics and software contract disputes in telecommunications and computer technology, providing expert reports, depositions, and trial testimony. His expert analysis and conclusions were instrumental in achieving a $35 million settlement for his client I2 against Oracle in a Sales Force/ Supply chain patent litigation. His expert opinions at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, DC on the operation of BitTorrent networks and file sharing of copyrighted materials, and the use of geolocation to determine users’ locations led to the judge preparing a written opinion for consideration by other judges handling similar cases. In a petition before the PTAB for re-examination of a patent’s validity, his expert written and oral opinions led to a reversal of the Board’s previous invalidity decision, resulting in the patent’s validity being sustained, as well as a similar reversal of a prior decision on a second patent the following day, using the same arguments. His areas of expertise include but are not limited to telecommunications, computer and network technologies, media distribution and media handling devices and cellular devices and networks including both hardware and software.

20 years

Manufacturing automation robotics and factory control, Service Order Entry, Call Center Management, Satellite based routing and processing, medical procedure kit, substation/transmission power delivery, networked property management/reservations, ERP, CRM, marketing support and analysis. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and non-AI based computer diagnostics.

Product Development
15 years

Centralized media management and distribution systems, high speed encryption devices, embedded control systems, personal computers, factory and field diagnostics software for personal computer manufacturers, ISDN telephony products.
Financial Services 12 years Support applications, automation applications for financial services document production and management, business improvement and support systems for financial professionals.

Business & Technology Consulting
22 years

Technology marketing, strategy development, start-up funding and business launch, systems integration, systems development, business process engineering and management.

Expert Witness
4 years

Expert for intellectual property & internet patents, DOJ Network forensics and telecommunications

Professional Experience

2006 to Present – Senior Consultant eComp Consultants – Tampa, FL

• Provide technology consulting and expert support on design and development of software products and ecommerce technology, including:
• Patent portfolio evaluation, market valuation, and prior art analysis
• Patent litigation consulting for validity/invalidity and infringement/non-infringement analysis
• Software contract and due diligence for disputes involving custom software
• Functional analysis, source code reviews and forensic analysis
• Forensic investigations involving cell phones, computers, GPS, AVL, Bluetooth OBEX, Object Push Profile, File Transfer Profile, Basic Imaging Profile and others

2007 to 2009 – Group Manager / Program Management Avanade, Inc. South Region – Dallas, TX

• Avanade is a global consulting joint venture of Accenture and Microsoft. With over 8,500 Microsoft Specialist consultants, the company is the leading Microsoft technologies solution provider. Avanade project managers manage projects with full P&L responsibility, organize and contribute to new business pursuits, manage aspects of staff careers and take part in designing and improving delivery management processes and methods.
• Worked with Business Development Executives and staffs in the Americas, Philippines and India to assess and propose state-of-the-art solutions to clients
• Managed projects according to Avanade’s highly developed and mature methodologies known as Avanade Connected Methods or ACM. Methods used: ACM for .NET, ACM for Business Intelligence, ACM for Dynamics AX (ERP), ACM for Infrastructure Transformation
• Responsible for ACM standard project manager deliverables including scope management plan, risk management plan, issue management log, communications plan, work plan, weekly status and financial reporting and monthly forecasts, etc
• Group Manager leading a 20 member financial and accounting team made up of members from Avanade and Accenture located in Seattle, San Diego, Dallas, Tampa, New York, London, and Kronberg

Consulting engagements included:

• Lowe’s, Inc. Special Orders E-Catalog and Advanced Kitchen Design Center
• AT&T Collaboration Services Dashboard (St. Louis) and AT&T Retail Metrics Dashboard (Atlanta)
• DataPath, Inc. ERP upgrade and conversion
• CardiologyStation project for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas
• Desktop Transformation project for ConocoPhillips Oil Company
• Modernization of infrastructure and applications of Safety-Kleen’s Waste Management Division

1988 to 2007 – CEO and Lead Consultant Teknosys, Inc. – Tampa, FL

• Consulted on IT, marketing, business start-up, business funding and business process needs across a variety of industries.
• Launched business providing integration services to major clients in eastern US and Canada with intent to become a commercial software developer
• Managed project planning and execution for multiple simultaneous projects for multiple clients
• Conceived and developed artificial intelligence-based computer problem solving software
• Designed and developed software product for performing hardware diagnostics for PC compatible computer manufacturers including DEC, NEC and Tandy/Radio Shack
• Sample Clients: Apple Computer, AgentLife, Florida Power & Light, Sykes Enterprises, Maxxim Medical, DiagSoft, Johnson & Johnson Sterile Design, and Northern Telecom (Nortel) bullets

1985 to 1988 – Chief Architect, GTE Data Services, Inc. – Tampa, FL

• GTE Data Services was a wholly owned subsidiary of GTE. It provided all technology research and innovation in software and computer systems development for GTE and external worldwide customers.
• Established architecture standards and reviewed projects for standards compliance on projects budgeted at $400M per year
• WORKSIN Chairman: Chaired one of 16 technical leadership groups of the GTE Worldwide Engineering Roundtable. Each group consisted of technical leaders from 43 different business units. The groups were responsible for leading the units to adopt advanced technologies and business processes
• Service Order Entry: Architect of GTEs first multi-tier application system using intelligent workstations to replace multiple terminals to multiple back end systems and applications
• Call Center Staffing Management: Defined architecture for system to manage dynamic staffing of 29 large call centers. Led a team to design and develop a set of applications. Won a competitive bid situation and delivered under tight time and budget constraints
• High Priority Mail: Developed a technical architecture for a mail delivery system using satellite-based distribution of mail to regional printing centers that enabled delivery of high priority mail in less than 24 hours. GTEDS won $50M contract to implement
• Project Eagle – Led team of 25+ specialists investigating $1B business opportunity including an 18-month investigation and planning phase of a billion dollar spin-off business in the highly engineered manufacturing sector that includes the aerospace and defense industries. Produced business plan, financial plan, defined product strategies and products, defined market entry strategies, identified key partners
• Reader Service Plus – Vice President, Systems and Technology. Worked with several of the US’s largest conventional publishers to evaluate interactive, on-line publishing strategies. Designed architecture for an on-line publishing platform before the Internet and Web

1979 to 1984 – Senior Electronics Engineer, Paradyne, Inc. – Largo, FL

• Managed product customization and delivery for workforce automation and wireless communications for electric & gas utilities. Provided business consulting and developed systems integration and software solutions for utilities companies on the leading edge of deregulation.
• Engineer on 2 families of PC compatible computer systems. Ported MS-DOS, contributed to hardware design
• Led a group of twenty engineers tasked with finding and resolving a number of system design problems that threatened an $86 million contract with the Social Security Administration. The company’s full resources were at our disposal and we met every evening with senior executive management to review progress. Nine months of intense work successfully resolved all problems and saved the contract
• World’s first high-speed encryption device: One of three engineers that created world’s first high speed DES encryption device approved by the National Security Agency
• Represented Paradyne on American National Standards Institute (ANSI) X3T1 and X3T1.1 technical committees that set the US standards for secure communications. The ANSI level 2 and level 4 encryption standards are based directly and exclusively upon my research work at Paradyne. Also supported US committees working with International Standards Organization (ISO) on worldwide standards

Focus Areas

Telecommunications

Embedded systems and design

PC systems and design

Secure Communications

eCommerce, internet marketing

Database systems and design

Manufacturing automation

Substation/transmission power delivery

Service Order Entry

Cell phone forensics

Software development and management

Networks, protocols and routing

Workforce automation and wireless communications

Document production and management

IP Portfolio Evaluation

Robotics and factory control

Satellite based routing