Computer Associates 2013 Annual Report Download - page 23

Our research and development activities also include a number of efforts to support our technical community in its pursuit
of leading solutions for customers. We continue to use CA Technologies Labs and CA University Relations to strengthen
our relationships with research communities by working with academia, professional associations, industry standards bodies,
customers and partners to explore novel products and emerging technologies. Our CA Council for Technical Excellence
leads innovative projects designed to promote communication, collaboration and synergy throughout our global technical
community. The CA Architecture Board helps us ensure a strong central architecture that supports our business strategy,
and our Distinguished Engineer Board encourages and recognizes excellence in engineering.
To keep us on top of major technological advances and to ensure our products continue to work well with those of other
vendors, we are active in most major industry standards organizations and take the lead on many issues. Our professionals
are certified across key standards, including Scrum Alliance (a non-profit organization focused on Scrum framework, which
is related to Agile development methodology), ITIL↧, PMI and CISPP, and are certified in CSM (Certified Scrum Master)
and CSP (Certified Scrum Professional) to lead the charge in implementing Agile practices and methodologies across the
Company. Our professionals also possess knowledge and expertise in key vertical markets, such as financial services,
government, telecommunications, insurance, health care, manufacturing and retail. Further, we were one of the first and
only enterprise software companies to have achieved true global ISO 9001:2008 certification, with all offices and aspects of
the organization under a single, centrally controlled, certified quality management system. In addition, our Global IT
Operations have attained ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 and ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certifications. These certifications demonstrate
our leadership in IT service management and information security.
We have charged to operations $490 million, $510 million, and $471 million in fiscal 2013, 2012 and 2011, respectively, for
product development and enhancements. In fiscal 2013, 2012 and 2011, we capitalized costs of $165 million, $180 million
and $170 million respectively, for internally developed software.
Intellectual Property
Our products and technology are generally proprietary. We rely on U.S. and foreign intellectual property laws, including
patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, to protect our proprietary rights. However, the extent and duration of
protection given to different types of intellectual property rights vary under different countries’ legal systems. In some
countries, full-scale intellectual property protection for our products and technology may be unavailable, and the laws of
other jurisdictions may not protect our proprietary technology rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. We
also maintain contractual restrictions in our agreements with customers, employees and others to protect our intellectual
property rights. These restrictions generally bind our employees to confidentiality and limit our customers’ use of our
software and prohibit certain disclosures to third parties.
We regularly license software and technology from third parties, including some competitors, and incorporate them into our
own software products. We include third-party technology in our products in accordance with contractual relationships that
specify our rights.
We believe that our patent portfolio differentiates our products and services from those of our competitors, enhances our
ability to access third-party technology and helps protect our investment in research and development. We have recently
enhanced our internal patent program to increase our ability to capture patents, strengthen their quality and increase the
pace at which we are able to move our innovations through the patent process. At March 31, 2013, our patent portfolio
included more than 800 issued patents and more than 900 pending applications in the United States and across the world.
The patents generally expire at various times over the next 20 years. Although the durations and geographic intellectual
property protection coverage for our patents may vary, we believe our patent portfolio adequately protects our interests.
Although we have a number of patents and pending applications that may be of value to various aspects of our products
and technology, we are not aware of any single patent that is essential to us or to any of our principal business product
areas.
The source code for our products is protected both as trade secrets and as copyrighted works. Our customers do not
generally have access to the source code for our products. Rather, on-premises customers typically access only the
executable code for our products, and SaaS customers access only the functionality of our SaaS offerings. Under certain
contingent circumstances, some of our customers are beneficiaries of a source code escrow arrangement that enables them
to obtain a limited right to access our source code.
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