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The next case is fuzzy sharp technology versus Intel 2014, 1261.

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And our first decision in this case is that we'd rather hear a sharp argument than a fuzzy argument.

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There's a good reason why the company is named fuzzy sharp.

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Right.

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Because it gives a fuzzy conclusion

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that's always safe.

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All right, please proceed.

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If it please the court, I'd like to say why we're here for Claim 67 and not all the other claims, why we're here in general.

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And then finally, what the heck is Claim 67?

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And that's important.

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There were a number of claims that initially were asserted, but

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When we looked at the decision of the judge, the district judge, and also Intel had made an inter-party proceeding in the US Patent and Trademark Office, and we looked at their arguments and their references, we thought it would be a good idea to acknowledge that the judge was right on some things, Intel was right on some things, and so we

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limited ourselves to claim 67.

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Mayo requires when the issue of eligibility... Does your decision not to address some of the other issues, does that affect your position on claim 67?

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Not at all, because they had at the parts of the claim, it was this or that.

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This was okay, but that was a problem.

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And there was no point of arguing those claims because we don't want to waste your time.

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Now, mail requires, when you're looking at eligibility, to look at the claims and to look at the claim, what's in the claim.

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And our problem is that the district judge took groups of claims and considered them as groups.

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except Claim 67 is so different from the other claims that were being considered by the judge.

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They were not, it was not considered separately.

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This case adds bounding volume to the previous claims, right?

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Yes, Your Honor.

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Bounding volumes.

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And isn't that just a concept, an idea, rather than something physical?

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It is theoretical and also, if I may, claim 67 is part of the stream of things to be done.

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If we can imagine, I'm a computer and we're presently in digital space and there's something here and there's something here and there's something here and there's something there.

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Okay, as a computer, I know those things are there, but I don't know

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if I'm going to create an image for a monitor, what's in front, what's behind, what can be seen, what can't be seen.

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And so there has to be a procedure.

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In 1991, the inventor, as a PhD student, realized that this is a problem because it took time for the computer to do it.

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Typically at that time, the computer

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would say from my point of view would shoot out a ray and if it hit a pixel and then another pixel, the pixel after the first one would be deemed hidden.

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And that was very effective, but very, very slow.

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And his idea was if you projected in digital space, these objects, the surfaces facing you,

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onto an imaginary screen, you could compare them.

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But because of different shapes of objects, this becomes complicated.

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So his idea, he said, well, I'll put a rectangular box around the surface that I'm interested in looking at, and I'll project it on my screen, and I'll compare.

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If nothing else is being projected on it, then I know everything in that box is visible.

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And if there's an interference in the box, it's not visible.

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Everything in the box is hidden.

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And this avoids weird renditions of, let's say, an arm sticking out of a wall.

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Because if you make an error as to what is either visible or either hidden,

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It's always completely correct as far as what you're looking at.

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Now, the claim itself, I have pointed out, is part of the stream.

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The claim starts out, it says a method of 3D computer graphics for processing the visibility of 3D surfaces.

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before a subsequent step of visibility and then goes out to say the method comprises and it refers back to the preamble said subsequent step of visibility computations.

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So either we look at it as a Judson's claim because it's an improvement of the system.

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It's not just some abstract manipulation of data.

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It's part of a whole stream of steps

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to ultimately render an image.

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Or, again, if we incorporate the preamble into it, we see again that it's part of a whole system.

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When I look at Claim 67, I see what you're talking about.

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I see the manipulation.

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Yes.

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But that's all I see.

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It doesn't go beyond that.

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doesn't go beyond saying, so now that I've manipulated this information, this is what I'm going to do, and this is how I'm going to do it.

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Well, Your Honor, the preamble says, these are steps to do before subsequent steps of visibility, which we know from the specification.

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And then they use the abounding volume and looking, and it says,

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said subsequent steps of visibility computations are from the perspective of the same viewpoint and it goes on additionally.

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So this is an improvement in something large.

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You didn't need to see all those other steps because they're known.

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It's a classic Jepson claim in which the patent office encourages this kind of claim because otherwise

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the patent examiner is confronted with a 10 page claim.

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So it does all this through some mathematical algorithms at the end.

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It takes the information and then it does what?

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Oh, and then in other steps.

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What are those other steps then in this claim?

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I'm sorry?

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What are those other steps in this claim?

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Well, they're not recorded here.

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as is in a classic Jepson claim, you don't put in all the steps.

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You can focus on that portion where you're making your improvement.

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And that's what was done here.

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Are you saying claim seven is a Jepson claim?

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Yes, Your Honor.

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I haven't practiced patent law for quite a while, but it doesn't look like a Jepson claim to me.

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In any event, the point is whether the bounding volume makes a difference.

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Well, the patent itself,

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It shows that the tests were conducted and it shows a significant improvement on how quickly things are rendered.

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We have up until now licensed many companies because in fact, this is used throughout the industry.

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So it has proved effective in the laboratory.

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And in practice.

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Anything further?

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I think I said what I wanted to say.

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All right.

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Well, let's have some rebuttal time for you.

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And we'll hear from Mr. Bagatelli.

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Thank you, Your Honor.

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Dan Bagatelli on behalf of the Appalooe Intel Corporation with me is my partner, Jim Valentine.

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The ALICE test

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is designed to distinguish between claims that are really focused on an abstract idea and claims that do more than that.

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They claim a concrete technological application.

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So Alice tells that you can't simply gussy up the claim with conventional computer hardware.

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You can't simply add conventional pre or post solution steps.

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And in this case, we have a claim that is directed to an abstract concept and nothing more.

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If we start with step one of the ALICE test, what is the core idea?

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Well, Fuzzy Sharp is focused on the bounding volume concept.

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Essentially, this is an approximation method.

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Instead of analyzing depth point by point, you take a bounding volume and you use that as a proxy for that portion of the service and you evaluate that instead.

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That is an abstract concept.

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It is just an approach that you might see in a textbook.

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It's fundamental building blocks.

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for further calculations.

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And that's, in fact, as Judge Raina pointed out, that's all that's done in this plane.

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It's a pre-calculation.

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Nothing more is done in the tangible physical realm of things and acts, as this court said in the FISA case.

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Even if you look at it as a series of ordered steps, it's just a geometrical manipulation of imaginary concepts.

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You've got the projection plane, you've got the grid cells,

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got the bounding volume, got the rejection of the bounding volume onto this, it's all imaginary.

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And then ultimately all you do is you calculate one distance versus another distance, and that's an input, perhaps, to other answers.

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The bounding volume is an imaginary boundary, right?

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I mean, there's no structure.

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There's no frame that actually is used to answer it.

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It's just an approximation of a locale.

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It's a proxy.

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prism around it, instead of using my jacket or my button, you put something around it and then you use that as a proxy to estimate.

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That's the abstract concept at a high level.

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Even at a detail level, every single step is done in the extract.

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So the question really is, is there anything in the claim that makes it more than that?

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You can't simply double down on the bounding volume.

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The bounding volume is abstract.

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What about the Z-buffer?

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The Z-buffer is just a memory.

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It is a standard computer hardware.

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There's nothing at all special about it.

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In fact, the basic algorithm could be done in your head or with pencil and paper.

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This plane does fall for a Z-buffer, but that is about as conventional computer hardware as you can imagine.

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It's not a specialized piece of equipment.

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It's just any kind of memory, and that's in the court's claim construction.

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So what else have we talked about?

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Well, we've got the preamble, and it does suggest that there might be some further calculations.

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And even if we accept that as a premise, it's conceded that those calculations are simply further post-solution activity that are entirely conventional.

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There's nothing new there whatsoever.

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So the claim is really to the abstract idea.

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And ultimately, all you've got is one set of calculations at most before another set of calculations, neither of which produces anything in the real world.

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And as I think this court put it in Digitech,

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Without additional limitations, a process that employs mathematical algorithms to manipulate existing information to generate additional information is not patent-eligible.

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That's this case.

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It's abstract at every level, and there's nothing that converts it into more than that.

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So we submit that this report correctly invalidated the claim.

[00:13:57] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Mr. Bagatell.

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Mr. Fink has some minutes if he wishes to use them.

[00:14:04] Speaker 01:
Say again, I'm sorry.

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You have some rebuttal time if you wish to use them.

[00:14:08] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor, I do.

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Claim 67 is not a business claim, not a theoretical manipulation, as suggested with respect to Digitech.

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It requires the use of a computer.

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It cannot be done mentally.

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It's an improvement in the process of using the computer for the calculation.

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And as I have said, if you don't want to accept that it's a Jepson claim, please consider the fact that the claim steps incorporate the preamble and the preamble says,

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It's part of a whole.

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And it's not of some law of nature that's being protected.

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People can, if they want to brute force and create images, they're free to do it.

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They don't have to use this.

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So we're not preempting anything.

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Thank you, Your Honor.

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Thank you.

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We'll take the case under advisement.

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That closes today's arguments.