In 2010 and 2011, Prof. Taflove and his co-defendant, Shih-Hui (Gilbert) Chang, a former Ph.D. student, won four consecutive decisions in the U.S. Federal courts in a case initiated in July 2007 and then pursued through the appeals process by two plaintiffs who questioned the originality of some of the Taflove-Chang publications.
The plaintiffs argued that their model was not a fact and more like the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, claiming that the model was only an expression of reality like Mickey is to a mouse.
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The model is not like Mickey Mouse because it is intended to describe reality in the form of an idea but is not an expression in and of itself.