Alan H. MacPherson (August 10, 1934 - December 8, 2008, Laguna Beach, California, United States) was an American patent attorney who pioneered the "clean room" defense.
[2] He received a full scholarship to attend Stanford University, where in 1956 he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, supplementing his tuition by working in the gold and silver mines of Alaska and Idaho.
Skjerven became a leading patent and IP boutique law firms in Silicon Valley, riding the wave of the dot-com boom.
MacPherson was credited with pioneering the "clean room" defense when he represented NEC in an IP lawsuit against Intel in the early 1980s.
To rebut this accusation, MacPherson gave an independent engineer the task of programming an IC (Integrated Circuit) to do the same thing as the NEC and Intel Chips, but cutting off all access to any previously written microcode - in other words, simulating clean room conditions.