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for numerous corporations and has served as a court-appointed
expert.
Dr. Davis concluded that all eight of the sample internal use
software activities failed to satisfy one or more of the seven
tests for the R&E credit.45 He summarized his findings as follows:
It is my opinion based on the sources [provided] * * *
that the work performed by Norwest involved normal and
routine software development. The software produced, in
terms of the products and services provided, and the
technology used to support it, was all within the then
current state of the art in the industrial work of
management information systems. None of the documents
provided suggest that any of the software developed by
Norwest was, among other things, innovative or involved
a significant degree of technical risk.
Dr. Davis described five types of projects associated with
software development: (1) Design and implementation (the de novo
creation of a body of software); (2) installation and testing (the
purchase and installation of software from a vendor); (3)
maintenance (ongoing adjustments to the code); (4) enhancement
(adding of functionality to the program); and (5) research
(attempting to do something for the first time). Dr. Davis found
that each of Norwest's activities involved at least one of the
first four types of projects, and generally characterized Norwest's
work as installation, interfacing, and testing. When asked to rank
the eight activities in order from most to least characteristic of
research, Dr. Davis provided the following list: SBS; Success and
45 However, Dr. Davis opined that one of the activities
not included in the eight sample activities, known as Expert
Systems, qualified as research and experimentation under sec. 41.
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