Business Objects, founded in 1990 by Bernard Liautaud and Jean‑Michel Cambot, pioneered enterprise business‑intelligence software. Its signature “semantic layer” let non‑technical users query, report, and visualize data without writing SQL. The founders filed a patent application for the technology in 1991.

The company grew quickly, reaching tens of thousands of customers and listing on NASDAQ in 1994. It acquired Crystal Decisions, which had a major development center in Vancouver, and became a leading BI vendor through the 1990s and 2000s. The firm successfully enforced its IP in litigation, including a $25 million suit against Cognos.

By 2005 Business Objects worried its patent portfolio was thin. It hired a small IP team, including Miles Steininger, to expand filings. In early 2007 Steininger focused on the semantic‑layer patent family as the window for a continuation was closing. When outside counsel and litigators saw no viable claims, he identified patentable content and drafted claims that would cover a competitor’s product.