[00:00:00] Speaker 01: This afternoon is Enway Williams, number 14-1486. [00:00:04] Speaker 01: Mr. Morris? [00:00:29] Speaker 01: Thank you, your honor. [00:00:38] Speaker 03: Given our time constraints, I'm not going to try and recapitulate everything that's in the briefs, but there were three errors in the board's decision that I would like to talk about that I think mandate reversal in this case. [00:00:50] Speaker 03: The first had to do with the limitation of automatically generating [00:00:55] Speaker 03: the schedule and specification aspects of an architectural contract document. [00:01:00] Speaker 03: The error, just factually, the board's decision that that was taught in the Elliott reference was simply not supported by substantial evidence. [00:01:09] Speaker 03: The second error is a legal error. [00:01:10] Speaker 03: It relates to the same limitations. [00:01:12] Speaker 03: And the error was that the board applied its understanding of Elliott to a version of our claims without considering the explicit definitions that we provided for the schedule and specification aspects. [00:01:25] Speaker 03: And then the final error that I wanted to talk to you about in the board's decision was its reliance on the printed matter rule in order to give no weight to limitations of allowing a user to select specific items, automatically populating a specific form, and specific data with which that form could be populated. [00:01:45] Speaker 03: Time permitting, I would also like to discuss the office's application of Alice to our claims, but that was not part of the decision of the board. [00:01:53] Speaker 03: I'd like to focus on the errors in that. [00:01:56] Speaker 03: So first, starting with the automatic generation of the schedule and specification aspects. [00:02:03] Speaker 03: The board found that that aspect of our claims was anticipated by Elliot because that reference teaches automatically generating a proposal and that the proposal would include amounts and detailed descriptions of materials. [00:02:19] Speaker 03: The problem is that that simply is not correct as a factual matter. [00:02:22] Speaker 03: The sections of Elliott's site in support of that finding relate to allowing the user to select materials that will be used in the building process and the Elliott's technology calculating the amount of those materials and then the cost of those materials based on the user's selection as well as plans that have been previously provided. [00:02:43] Speaker 03: Those sections don't talk about automatically generating a schedule or specification or indicate that those would be included in Elliott's proposal. [00:02:52] Speaker 03: Now, the board did have two other findings of fact on the automatic generation question. [00:02:57] Speaker 03: Those were its eighth and ninth findings, but those referred simply to saying that Elliott's technology can prepare the proposal and that it can be submitted to contractors and they can bid on it or revise it or suggest changes. [00:03:13] Speaker 03: They don't say that Elliott's proposal would include the schedule or specification, or if it does, [00:03:20] Speaker 03: those aspects would be automatically generated as is required by our claims. [00:03:25] Speaker 03: So that's the first error in the board's opinion that I wanted to talk about. [00:03:29] Speaker 03: The second is that even if the board's conclusion as to what Elliott teaches was supported by substantial evidence, that its comparison of that to our claims was legally improper because we provided explicit definitions for the schedule and specification. [00:03:48] Speaker 03: Those weren't used by the board. [00:03:49] Speaker 03: And this court has held that when the meaning of claim terms is a disputed issue, the board is required to set forth its constructions of those terms explicitly in its decision. [00:04:00] Speaker 03: And in this case, I think the board did that using parentheticals to indicate that it was interpreting the schedule as meaning amounts of materials and the specification as meaning detailed descriptions of materials. [00:04:12] Speaker 03: The problem is those were not our definitions. [00:04:15] Speaker 03: And not only were they not our definitions, they were materially different from our definitions. [00:04:19] Speaker 03: to take the example of the specification, our definition required that the specification provide written detailed descriptions of the materials and processes that make up the building. [00:04:32] Speaker 03: The board's definition and its analysis didn't have any treatment of the processes that make up the building, focusing only on the materials. [00:04:41] Speaker 03: And so even if the board's understanding of what Eliot teaches was supported by substantial evidence, [00:04:48] Speaker 03: Its application of that understanding to our claims was simply unsupportable because of their failure to use the correct constructions that we provided for our terms. [00:04:58] Speaker 03: Now, the final error in the board decision that I wanted to talk about was its use of the printed matter cases to give no weight to the limitations of allowing the user to select specific items, automatically populating a specific form, and then specific data that that form would be populated with. [00:05:16] Speaker 03: There's actually, from a legal standpoint, not really any disagreement between ourselves and the office on this case because we both agree that in an instance where a claim requires information to be processed by a computer, the printed matter cases simply don't apply. [00:05:32] Speaker 03: What the office has done in its argument is to say, well, those cases are an example of a broader rule that when you have limitations which [00:05:43] Speaker 03: are not functionally related to the rest of the claim, that you can give them no weight. [00:05:48] Speaker 03: We go through in detail in our briefs what the limitations are and how they're related. [00:05:52] Speaker 03: And again, I don't want to recapitulate everything. [00:05:55] Speaker 03: But setting that to the side, there's no support for that rule existing at all. [00:06:01] Speaker 03: And the only support for its existence or its adoption that the office has been able to provide is the printed matter cases themselves. [00:06:09] Speaker 03: And we all agree that those don't [00:06:11] Speaker 03: apply where you have information processed by a computer. [00:06:14] Speaker 03: Moreover, the rule that's proposed by the office would be inconsistent with the general... Well, I want to make it different so that it's a computer rather than something printed on a piece of paper. [00:06:25] Speaker 03: Well, there's a couple of different reasons for that. [00:06:28] Speaker 03: The first reason is because the printed matter cases focus on the situation where you have information that's perceptible only to the human mind. [00:06:36] Speaker 03: And what they say is, all right, if that information [00:06:39] Speaker 03: is printed on some substrate, but it's not functionally related to it, then they don't have to be given away. [00:06:45] Speaker 03: But with a computer, the information that we recite is only perceptible or even accessible when you actually use that with the computer itself. [00:06:55] Speaker 03: It's not something that will be done by a human mind. [00:06:57] Speaker 03: So what? [00:07:00] Speaker 01: I mean, you're saying that you throw in the trash bin the whole printed matter doctrine if you've got a computer involved? [00:07:09] Speaker 03: I think that when you're reciting specific limitations about specific steps that the computer would perform, for example, that it would populate fields in a form with specific data, which is one of the steps that we recite that was given no weight, I think that the printed matter simply doesn't apply in that case. [00:07:28] Speaker 01: So you can get patents on showing different fields in a computer depending on the subject matter of the field? [00:07:37] Speaker 03: I don't think you can, Your Honor, and the reason I think that even if the printed matter is treated as not applying in a case where information is processed by a computer is because if you have some limitation that has no innovation relative to the prior art, then that claim that recites those limitations [00:07:56] Speaker 03: can be rejected as being obvious, either over whatever primary reference has been relied on or by that reference. [00:08:02] Speaker 01: So you have to get into an obviousness analysis and secondary considerations and all that before you can reject a patent claim based on the fact that you named one field one thing and another field another thing. [00:08:20] Speaker 03: I think that it's somewhat different than [00:08:22] Speaker 03: simply or the position I'm trying to advance is somewhat different than simply referring to the names of fields in a form. [00:08:30] Speaker 03: But if you're talking about specific data that's processed by a computer and it's applied in a particular way that isn't taught in the prior art, I think if there is a limitation that is not disclosed in a prior art reference that in general that reference shouldn't be treated as anticipatory. [00:08:49] Speaker 02: And if we assume that the broader claims of you input data about building materials or things like that are anticipated, but because the prior art reference doesn't have all these dependent claims saying singling out every specific category of data shingles, doors, anything like that, floor tiles, that [00:09:19] Speaker 02: just because you now name specific categories that they're not anticipated to, even if they're included in that broader category of putting in building materials? [00:09:30] Speaker 03: So I think that the name of the- Did you ever find somebody who named shingles before? [00:09:37] Speaker 03: Well, I would think then that if that's something that can easily be found, that the case would be obvious. [00:09:45] Speaker 03: But one of the things about our limitations [00:09:47] Speaker 02: But let's assume that nobody's written a patent that specific. [00:09:51] Speaker 02: I mean, do you get a patent on the fact that this overall method and system may be anticipated, but you can patent specific input of shingles? [00:10:07] Speaker 02: Because nobody has thought to break it down that far? [00:10:09] Speaker 03: So I think that our particular inputs are different in kind from what is taught in this particular prior art reference. [00:10:16] Speaker 03: The reason for that is because our forms that you put things... But let's assume they're not. [00:10:21] Speaker 02: Let's assume that the broad category that you're talking about, building materials, includes all these things, and that that broad category is anticipated by the reference. [00:10:32] Speaker 02: What we're talking about now, I think, is by breaking down that broad category into specific named categories, does that get it out of anticipation? [00:10:41] Speaker 03: I think that identifying additional limitations that are not there does get it out of anticipation, but make it an obviousness rejection if it's proper at all. [00:10:51] Speaker 03: It seems that I have about four minutes left, which I was hoping to reserve for a bottle. [00:10:58] Speaker 03: You can reserve that for a bottle. [00:10:59] Speaker 03: I'm sorry. [00:11:00] Speaker 01: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:11:10] Speaker 00: The issue that Williams Council brought up about the board not properly finding that the step of automatically generating a claimed schedule and specification is not in Elliott is not accurate. [00:11:28] Speaker 00: The board actually did make a finding that the claimed schedule, which the board found to be a list of attributes of repetitive building parts, is in fact in Elliott. [00:11:40] Speaker 00: when it found that Elliott disclosed that its proposal included specific flooring product data, such as product type, product description, product ID codes, supplier names, cost per unit, and installation times of the product. [00:11:57] Speaker 00: The board also found that Elliott discloses the specification, which is found to be detailed written descriptions of materials and processes that make up a building when the board found that Elliott's proposal [00:12:10] Speaker 00: included product descriptions of floor materials, which is the written description of materials. [00:12:17] Speaker 00: And then it also went into information on square footage, cost data, and installation of the floor materials, which it considered to be the processes that make up a building. [00:12:29] Speaker 00: In addition, the board found that these parts of the construction proposal were automatically generated when it found that in ELIA, it teaches that when a user inputs data, [00:12:40] Speaker 00: into a prompt window, the program then automatically populates this information into the construction proposal. [00:12:46] Speaker 00: So the board didn't have any claim construction that was different from what the claims intended and the board did make a finding that is supported by substantial evidence that this limitation, this step has been met in Elliott. [00:13:01] Speaker 00: With regards to the printed matter discussion, the board, I'm sorry, [00:13:09] Speaker 00: Mr. Williams claims that because this is a system that involves a computer that you can't apply printed matter to this case. [00:13:21] Speaker 00: And that's actually not true. [00:13:24] Speaker 00: Lowry, which is a case that we cited in our brief, actually says that when there is underlying data that's simply sitting in a database, you can apply printed matter by analogy. [00:13:34] Speaker 00: And here the board correctly applied the printed matter doctrine [00:13:37] Speaker 00: to the shingles and wind rating exposed flashing, concealed flashing limitations when it found that they're not entitled to patentable weight because they're not functionally related to the underlying process in those claims. [00:13:54] Speaker 00: If you were to swap out shingles with flooring or doors, the claims would still perform the exact same way. [00:14:02] Speaker 00: And in addition to that, if you look at Elliot [00:14:05] Speaker 00: Elliott discusses shingles. [00:14:08] Speaker 00: If I could point you to... Yeah, but not in the same detail. [00:14:13] Speaker 00: Well, it doesn't include the same detail, but if you have a form, an architectural form that can relate to shingles, then one can assume that the attributes relating to that form would be included. [00:14:23] Speaker 00: Elliott didn't break it down specifically, but it says in Table 7 that there are steps that you take, and one of those steps is considering shingles. [00:14:33] Speaker 00: And so one could say, [00:14:34] Speaker 00: Well, if you're having an architectural form that has shingles, it's obviously going to have things like wind rating, concealed flashing, and exposed flashing as well. [00:14:45] Speaker 00: And so the board properly did apply the printed matter doctrine to those limitations. [00:14:53] Speaker 00: And I would just like to conclude, because I think I've addressed everything that Mr. Williams' counsel brought up, unless there's further questions, [00:15:02] Speaker 00: We think that we have a strong 102 argument and that this court should affirm the board's decision, but we did bring up the 101 issue simply because we wanted to be complete and we know there are times when this court has asked for the agency's opinion on whether or not we thought claims were eligible. [00:15:21] Speaker 00: If there are no further questions. [00:15:23] Speaker 01: Good. [00:15:23] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:15:24] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:15:34] Speaker 01: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:15:43] Speaker 03: I will be brief. [00:15:44] Speaker 03: It sounds like there are two issues that were raised that I'd like to address and then I think I shall be done for the day. [00:15:50] Speaker 03: The first is the nature of the material that was dismissed as printed matter. [00:15:58] Speaker 03: One of the things I want to make sure that I'm clear on is that it's not simply saying we have [00:16:04] Speaker 03: more detailed than Elliott happened to explicitly say. [00:16:09] Speaker 03: It's actually different in kind, and you can see this from the arguments that were made where in Elliott, the figure five in Elliott shows the kind of data that they would have for flooring or it seems any of their types of architectural materials. [00:16:26] Speaker 03: They'd have cost, they'd have amounts of it, but there's nothing specific to any particular architectural category. [00:16:33] Speaker 03: And when this was brought up in the reply, the assumption was that any prior art disclosing relationships of attributes of a floor, such as durability rating, specific flooring items, would be processed in the same way as the information in the claim shingles form is processed. [00:16:52] Speaker 03: But we know for a fact that, for example, durability rating and indeed any specific flooring attributes are not present in the form for Elliot, whereas [00:17:03] Speaker 03: the wind rating, the concealed flashing, the exposed flashing, these are shingle-specific attributes that would be populated. [00:17:12] Speaker 03: And so it's true that Elliott doesn't go into the same level of detail, but it also doesn't go into the same type of detail. [00:17:22] Speaker 03: And simply assuming that it would provide that detail is both, I do not believe, sufficient for [00:17:31] Speaker 03: anticipation finding, especially in the absence of finding a fact. [00:17:35] Speaker 03: And also, I believe that it is contradicted by what Elliot does say that it collects for the flooring form. [00:17:43] Speaker 03: And then the final point I wanted to address was what the board found and what it treated as its interpretations of the schedule and the specification. [00:17:54] Speaker 03: And the board was actually explicit as to what its meaning, it interpreted these [00:18:02] Speaker 03: terms it's having. [00:18:03] Speaker 03: The specification did not address the processes. [00:18:09] Speaker 03: The findings in fact didn't address this. [00:18:11] Speaker 03: And the analysis that was applied on the board decision on page seven, page eight of the joint appendix also didn't go into any detail or indeed mention the processes that are part of a building. [00:18:24] Speaker 03: And that's something that if you're going to generate an architectural contract document is a critical feature of that document. [00:18:32] Speaker 03: and is something that distinguishes our invention from the prior art reference, which would not generate the same kinds of output or do it in the same manner. [00:18:43] Speaker 03: And for those reasons, we believe the board's decision should be reversed. [00:18:47] Speaker 02: Thank you.