[00:00:32] Speaker 03: I'll grab some water too. [00:01:21] Speaker 04: The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has now opened an in-session drop-in of the United States from its humble court. [00:01:32] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:01:35] Speaker 03: Good morning. [00:01:35] Speaker 03: I appreciate your being here on a difficult day. [00:01:41] Speaker 03: Traveling-wise, the court doesn't like to reschedule. [00:01:45] Speaker 03: We have six cases on the calendar this morning, three patent cases, a trade case, a veterans case, a government employee case. [00:02:03] Speaker 03: The employee case and the veterans case and one patent case have been submitted on the briefs and will not be argued. [00:02:12] Speaker 03: So the first case, [00:02:15] Speaker 03: Is TMI Products versus Rosen Entertainment, 2014-1553. [00:02:22] Speaker 03: Mr. Barcello. [00:02:33] Speaker 00: May it please the court. [00:02:35] Speaker 00: The district court committed reversible error by construing claim one too narrowly in a situation where there was no clear disclaimer of claim scope. [00:02:44] Speaker 00: And where the heavy presumption in favor of the ordinary meaning should have been afforded its full meaning. [00:02:50] Speaker 00: And with the court's permission, we're going to show this chart with some plain language on it. [00:02:56] Speaker 03: You have binoculars? [00:02:58] Speaker 00: Well, the same language is on page 14 of the blue brief. [00:03:01] Speaker 00: We have the... The district court ignored the plain and ordinary meaning of the claim and imported a movable housing limitation into the claim. [00:03:12] Speaker 00: Here's the core issue and the reason why reversal is warranted. [00:03:16] Speaker 00: The intrinsic record plainly reveals that claim one covers a housing that includes an opening that does not move. [00:03:25] Speaker 00: For example, as shown in figure 10, because it still permits the selective access that's recited in claim one. [00:03:33] Speaker 00: This is because according to the plain meaning of the claim, it is the housing that permits the access [00:03:41] Speaker 00: whereas it's the user that selects it. [00:03:44] Speaker 00: The district court justified its narrow construction by asserting that the claim was redundant, that the word selective was redundant in the claim. [00:03:53] Speaker 00: That's flatly wrong. [00:03:55] Speaker 04: You say that's flatly wrong. [00:03:58] Speaker 04: Why is it that your theory of what selective access means is different from what your theory would be if the word access alone appeared? [00:04:10] Speaker 00: When you're talking about a user, your honor, a human being, someone who's sentient and can actually make a choice. [00:04:16] Speaker 04: Right, who has access. [00:04:18] Speaker 00: Yes. [00:04:19] Speaker 04: Access means I can freely put the object into the device. [00:04:27] Speaker 04: Okay. [00:04:28] Speaker 04: What's the difference between that kind of access that I have and selective access? [00:04:34] Speaker 00: The difference, Your Honor, is that only a user has that kind of access, selective access. [00:04:38] Speaker 04: Right, but you would say, with respect to the user, that the user either has access, or as you view it, selective access. [00:04:45] Speaker 04: I don't see a difference between the two, vis-a-vis the user. [00:04:49] Speaker 00: There is no difference vis-a-vis the user. [00:04:51] Speaker 00: But that's the point, and actually the district court's observation, which he made at page 815 in his order about this, he observed, by definition, [00:05:00] Speaker 00: One with access to an object may choose whether or not to make use of it. [00:05:04] Speaker 00: And that, I believe, Your Honor, is the point that you just made. [00:05:06] Speaker 00: And we completely agree with it. [00:05:08] Speaker 00: And we think it supports our position. [00:05:10] Speaker 00: The point is not whether a user automatically has selective access to an object. [00:05:14] Speaker 00: The point is that there are other things that could access something. [00:05:18] Speaker 00: And those things don't have to have selective access. [00:05:21] Speaker 04: So you argue then that if the language of claim one had read to permit access to the input opening, [00:05:30] Speaker 04: it would mean something different, entirely different from what claim one now means. [00:05:35] Speaker 00: That's a very difficult question to answer because we have to take the claim language in context. [00:05:39] Speaker 04: Tell me, you say they mean two different things. [00:05:42] Speaker 04: Tell me what the difference would be if the word selective were left out. [00:05:47] Speaker 00: If the word selective were left out. [00:05:50] Speaker 04: How would this claim read on a different set of potentially infringing accused devices? [00:05:56] Speaker 00: First of all, there'd be an ambiguity in the claim because there's other kinds of access that are listed right in the claim. [00:06:01] Speaker 00: So you need the word selective to distinguish from the visual access that's just a few lines up from the claim from selective access. [00:06:09] Speaker 00: So for the very simple claim drafting reason that there are two kinds of access right in the claim, you need the word selective in there. [00:06:16] Speaker 00: It's not redundant. [00:06:16] Speaker 00: That's why I'm here standing up saying it's plainly not redundant. [00:06:23] Speaker 02: I mean... [00:06:25] Speaker 02: Just tell me what does the word selective mean in the claim? [00:06:29] Speaker 00: It refers to choice. [00:06:31] Speaker 00: It's choice by the user. [00:06:33] Speaker 00: You can read it one line down from the selective access. [00:06:36] Speaker 00: It says, the housing is structured to permit selective access to the input of the media player, and it's for the user to be permitted to position the media storage device within the player. [00:06:48] Speaker 02: So the last limitation of the claim also talks about accessibility, right? [00:06:52] Speaker 02: Absolutely. [00:06:55] Speaker 02: My concern, I guess the district court's concern, was that if we understand selective access, how you want us to understand it, then it renders the last limitation redundant, because that's also talking about accessibility. [00:07:14] Speaker 00: There's absolutely nothing wrong, Your Honor, with having the middle part of the claim [00:07:19] Speaker 00: being redundant, as you say, or as the district court said with the last part of the claim, they both talk about accessibility. [00:07:25] Speaker 00: But guess what? [00:07:25] Speaker 00: And that's why we brought this chart all the way from California. [00:07:28] Speaker 00: Claim one has a different flavor of accessibility in the bottom part of the claim than claim four. [00:07:35] Speaker 00: The district court gave short shrift to claim four. [00:07:38] Speaker 00: He barely mentioned it. [00:07:39] Speaker 00: He only mentioned it in a quote that we provided from our briefs. [00:07:42] Speaker 00: There's an extremely strong claim differentiation point when you compare claims one and four. [00:07:47] Speaker 00: Claim one is all about the second opening that's providing the structure that permits the selective access. [00:07:53] Speaker 00: Claim four is about the pivotal attachment. [00:07:57] Speaker 00: If you study the history of this claim, when it was first filed, from the day it was filed to the day it was issued, the language about selective access was never changed. [00:08:07] Speaker 00: The only thing that happened is what used to be in claim two, which has to do with the second opening, which is now at the bottom of the claim, that was put in eventually at the end of the claim. [00:08:17] Speaker 00: Whereas the language about pivotal attachment that used to be in claim six, dependent claim six, that was put in a different claim, which ended up as claim four. [00:08:24] Speaker 03: You had an election, you had a restriction requirement and an election of species. [00:08:30] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:08:31] Speaker 03: Why didn't you file a divisional or a continuation for the claims that were withdrawn? [00:08:38] Speaker 00: That was not done. [00:08:39] Speaker 00: There was a divisional that was filed, the claims were different. [00:08:42] Speaker 00: Rosen makes a big argument about that there's a divisional application. [00:08:46] Speaker 00: In fact, we stuck the whole application in the appendix. [00:08:48] Speaker 00: There's nothing in there that negates our argument. [00:08:51] Speaker 00: There's nothing in that claim language that tells you there should be a narrow construction of selective access. [00:08:56] Speaker 00: And they didn't point that out in their brief and there is no argument like that. [00:08:59] Speaker 03: Claims were withdrawn. [00:09:00] Speaker 03: You wanted that coverage and you didn't pursue further application. [00:09:04] Speaker 00: We didn't need to reinstate them because claim one already had the language that we wanted. [00:09:09] Speaker 00: And necessarily, it must have been broader than dependent claims three through five. [00:09:14] Speaker 03: Most practitioners don't want to rely only on the so-called generic claim. [00:09:18] Speaker 03: That's why you have species claims. [00:09:20] Speaker 00: That's correct. [00:09:21] Speaker 00: There's no need to reinstate the dependent claims. [00:09:24] Speaker 00: There's no need for the examiner to announce that you could reinstate them. [00:09:27] Speaker 00: That's all permissive practice. [00:09:29] Speaker 00: And there's no reason to do it. [00:09:31] Speaker 00: The fact that it wasn't done is interesting, but it has no bearing on the outcome of this appeal. [00:09:35] Speaker 04: But that assumes your conclusion, in effect, because that assumes that claim one was properly read the way you now say it must be read. [00:09:45] Speaker 04: But the examiner, as I read the prosecution history, didn't agree with you on that point. [00:09:50] Speaker 04: Didn't agree that claim one was as broad as you are characterizing it now as being. [00:09:55] Speaker 00: He, I think it was a she, but the examiner [00:09:59] Speaker 00: a few times commented on the record that there appears to be no generic linking claim. [00:10:03] Speaker 00: That was wrong. [00:10:05] Speaker 04: Well, that's what you say. [00:10:06] Speaker 00: It is what I say, and we have the support for it. [00:10:08] Speaker 00: Well, okay. [00:10:10] Speaker 00: So it all depends on how you start looking at this case. [00:10:13] Speaker 00: Do you start from just looking at the claim language, which is how we urge the court to start the analysis, or do you start from an examiner comment that was wrong in the file history, or do you start from looking at the pivoting embodiments of Figure 11 and 12, which is where Rosen wants to start the analysis, [00:10:28] Speaker 00: Our position is we read the court's opinions. [00:10:32] Speaker 00: We read Phillips. [00:10:33] Speaker 00: We read the litany of cases that say start with the plain language of the claim. [00:10:39] Speaker 00: There's a heavy presumption in favor of the plain and ordinary meaning. [00:10:43] Speaker 00: In this case, selective access means something. [00:10:46] Speaker 00: There's no redundancy. [00:10:48] Speaker 00: There's visual access. [00:10:49] Speaker 03: Is there any definition in the spec of what selective access means? [00:10:54] Speaker 00: There is not. [00:10:55] Speaker 00: The term is just used in the claims and a few times in the specification. [00:10:59] Speaker 00: We can go down the street and ask 50 people what selective means. [00:11:02] Speaker 00: We sighted the dictionary. [00:11:03] Speaker 00: Everybody knows it just means choice. [00:11:05] Speaker 00: Choice by the user. [00:11:06] Speaker 00: You have to make a selection. [00:11:08] Speaker 00: It has to be somebody who can think and make that selection. [00:11:10] Speaker 00: It can't be a post. [00:11:12] Speaker 00: It can't be something that can't make a selection. [00:11:17] Speaker 00: This is a case about whether we're going to actually apply the court's precedent and give each claim word its full and broad meaning or are we going to import limitations? [00:11:28] Speaker 00: In fact, the moving limitation that the district court imposes is nowhere in the patent. [00:11:32] Speaker 00: It's not in the claims. [00:11:33] Speaker 00: It was some kind of compromise decision urged by Rosen because they knew they couldn't say it was pivotal attachments that's required to be put in the claim because that's exactly the language of claim four. [00:11:44] Speaker 00: soften their position a little bit to make it moving instead of pivoting, but there's no support for that. [00:11:49] Speaker 02: There's also another problem here as to what does the word housing mean in this claim, right? [00:11:53] Speaker 00: That's not a problem at all, Your Honor. [00:11:56] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:11:57] Speaker 03: There's a question from the court. [00:11:59] Speaker 03: Is ipso facto a potential problem? [00:12:01] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:12:03] Speaker 02: You want the word housing to also be the headrest, right? [00:12:09] Speaker 00: Not at all. [00:12:10] Speaker 02: The headrest can be the housing? [00:12:12] Speaker 00: The headrest can be the housing. [00:12:13] Speaker 00: A housing is something that houses, something in which the items that are being housed are stored. [00:12:19] Speaker 00: There was no dispute about that in the district court. [00:12:21] Speaker 00: We can raise it now, but there's the housing. [00:12:23] Speaker 02: You have a claim limitation that says wherein the housing is adapted to be coupled to the mounting structure within the seat back of the vehicle to thereby retain the housing within the seat back. [00:12:35] Speaker 02: And so how can the housing be something [00:12:40] Speaker 02: that's the same thing as the seat back. [00:12:43] Speaker 02: I mean, the housing has to be something distinct, separate, and apart from the seat back, right? [00:12:49] Speaker 00: The housing can be part of the seat back. [00:12:51] Speaker 00: There are embodiments in the patent. [00:12:53] Speaker 00: You can see them in the figures. [00:12:54] Speaker 00: I forget exactly which one it is. [00:12:55] Speaker 02: Well, yeah, that's figures 11A and 12, which is the other embodiment. [00:12:59] Speaker 00: No, I'm not talking about those embodiments. [00:13:00] Speaker 00: I'm talking about the ones where, you know, it's a big truck or something like that. [00:13:04] Speaker 00: It's got a big, huge seat. [00:13:07] Speaker 00: And there is no headrest. [00:13:08] Speaker 00: The headrest is integral with the seat back. [00:13:09] Speaker 00: That's why the term seat back is used sometimes. [00:13:12] Speaker 00: So there's a seat back. [00:13:13] Speaker 00: You can have a head rest that's integral with the seat back or it could be separate. [00:13:17] Speaker 00: And the housing can be integral to the head rest. [00:13:20] Speaker 00: It could be integral to the seat back. [00:13:22] Speaker 00: It could be a separate thing. [00:13:23] Speaker 00: A housing is simply something that houses the items that we're talking about. [00:13:27] Speaker 00: And we just put up this other chart from their expert declaration where there's an admission [00:13:35] Speaker 00: these claims were directed to figure 10. [00:13:37] Speaker 00: And the expert also admitted, we cited this in our brief, I think it's on page 853, where he admitted that there's a housing in figures nine and 10. [00:13:46] Speaker 00: So if the parties agree that there's a housing in figures nine and 10, there must be a housing that's this housing that doesn't have to move and claim one, and there's no issue about it. [00:13:58] Speaker 00: That's why I said there's not a problem with the housing. [00:14:01] Speaker 03: Mr. Bassello, you wanted to say [00:14:03] Speaker 03: time for rebuttal? [00:14:04] Speaker 03: Yes, thank you, Your Honor. [00:14:05] Speaker 03: And would you take those exhibits down and not bring them back? [00:14:10] Speaker 03: It blocks off access to the courtroom and you can't read them or don't need them? [00:14:16] Speaker 01: I apologize, Your Honor. [00:14:16] Speaker 01: Or both? [00:14:17] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:14:19] Speaker 03: Mr. Cooper. [00:14:29] Speaker 01: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:14:32] Speaker 01: In response [00:14:33] Speaker 01: Pelley notes that TMI is suggesting not an ordinary meaning, but a strange meaning. [00:14:42] Speaker 01: And what Judge Klausner needed to do and what the court needs to do is construe a structural limitation that's not based on what a user would do with the invention. [00:14:54] Speaker 03: This is a curious case. [00:14:55] Speaker 03: You've got an original claim talking about selective access, and you've got a whole lengthy specification [00:15:03] Speaker 03: And it's being interpreted not to cover figures 9 and 10. [00:15:13] Speaker 03: And it's being interpreted to cover 11, which is after 9. [00:15:22] Speaker 03: Why should we affirm a clamp construction that leaves out a good portion of the spec? [00:15:31] Speaker 03: Was it not confident? [00:15:33] Speaker 03: Was the claim not competently drafted? [00:15:35] Speaker 01: I know it's the restriction requirement that existed and applicants disavow of those, the inventions in FIGS 9A and 9B. [00:15:45] Speaker 01: And the examiner is a conclusion that there was no generic claim, no linking claim, so completely different than the 14A case that TMI relies on. [00:15:54] Speaker 01: TMI had adequate [00:15:58] Speaker 01: time during prosecution to raise these issues, both as you said, Your Honor, in the context of a divisional application. [00:16:07] Speaker 01: They withdrew claims, original claims three to five, which go to figures nine A and B, never brought them back when they got what was in effect original independent claim one allowed. [00:16:20] Speaker 01: They had the opportunity then to bring dependent claims three to five back in. [00:16:24] Speaker 01: They did not do that. [00:16:26] Speaker 01: The examiner didn't give them the opportunity to do that. [00:16:31] Speaker 01: So the Judge Klausner and what we suggest the court should do is determine structural selective access, something where there's actually structure. [00:16:44] Speaker 01: And Judge Klausner did not import, as TMI suggests, anything into the claim. [00:16:50] Speaker 01: Judge Klausner construed a claim phrase properly by identifying the structure that would make sense in the claim. [00:17:00] Speaker 01: that's constructed to permit selective access to the input opening of a media player, a DVD player, what does that mean to be structured to permit selective access? [00:17:10] Speaker 03: Are you saying that Plan 1 never covered figures 9 and 10? [00:17:15] Speaker 01: Correct. [00:17:15] Speaker 01: And that's exactly what the examiner said. [00:17:17] Speaker 01: That's why there was a restriction requirement. [00:17:19] Speaker 01: And that's why TMI decided to make the deal with the Patent Office at that point to obtain [00:17:29] Speaker 01: an independent claim that it could get, so it withdrew original dependent claims three to five. [00:17:35] Speaker 01: They never brought them back in. [00:17:36] Speaker 02: They were dependent claims. [00:17:37] Speaker 02: It was very unusual. [00:17:38] Speaker 02: Underneath the presumably broader independent claim one. [00:17:42] Speaker 01: That's correct, and it's very unusual in our experience that something like that would happen, but if you look at what dependent claims three to five recited, they required an opening and a headrest [00:17:55] Speaker 01: They didn't fit. [00:17:56] Speaker 01: They were really incongruous with the independent claim that they supposedly depended from. [00:18:03] Speaker 01: I think this is also what the examiner identified in connection with the restriction report. [00:18:09] Speaker 01: It's a structural selective access is what we're looking for and what we think Judge Klausner construed. [00:18:17] Speaker 01: What TMI urges you to do today is suggest basically to ignore [00:18:23] Speaker 01: the phrase select, the word selective. [00:18:26] Speaker 01: If it's interchangeable, it doesn't need to be there. [00:18:29] Speaker 01: And if that's the case, then you have a situation where continuous access, where there would just simply be an opening by which you could either insert the DVD or not would meet the requirement of that claim. [00:18:43] Speaker 01: And we conclude that that's illogical and doesn't, it just doesn't make sense. [00:18:49] Speaker 01: It's the opposite of what Mr. Barslow is saying today as far as an ordinary meeting. [00:18:53] Speaker 01: that's an extraordinary meeting, is if housing is structured to permit selective access and then the idea that an opening, just a simple opening, would be enough to provide that selective access. [00:19:08] Speaker 01: The examiner also during prosecution applied this language to the Tito, the Tito reference, and in the context of doing that made an application very similar to what [00:19:23] Speaker 01: Judge Klausner did, noting that the housing in Vitito had one orientation where access was allowed and another where it wasn't. [00:19:32] Speaker 01: So there was some movement or change in that orientation. [00:19:36] Speaker 01: That's not importing something from the specification. [00:19:40] Speaker 01: In fact, there's nothing that I know of in the specification with that language, but it's just trying to make a structural, so it's a selective access interpretation. [00:19:51] Speaker 04: We're in the prosecution history. [00:19:53] Speaker 04: Remind me, because I don't have it marked. [00:19:55] Speaker 04: Is the discussion of the Tito by the examiner? [00:19:59] Speaker 01: Tito, yes. [00:19:59] Speaker 01: You're with me. [00:20:14] Speaker 01: Let's see. [00:20:15] Speaker 01: It's Appendix 708 and Appendix 1102. [00:20:18] Speaker 04: 708 and 1102? [00:20:20] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:20:21] Speaker 01: And there the examiner looks at the Tito and is of the opinion that the housing in the Tito moves between accessible and inaccessible conditions. [00:20:40] Speaker 01: In a squaring back amendment during prosecution, TMI also made what we believe is a clear disavowal of claims scope, leaving behind [00:20:50] Speaker 01: Invention is shown at 6 9 a to be when in response to the examiner in that square back Amendment which was this is a 7 3 5 and a 7 4 3 to 4 4 It identifies the invention as only being shown in 6 11 a to 12 B There's no discussion of 6 9 a and 9 b in that in that context so we have a situation where [00:21:19] Speaker 01: During the entire patent prosecution history, TMI had many opportunities to go after the kind of construction it's choosing to do today. [00:21:28] Speaker 01: It did not. [00:21:30] Speaker 01: It struck a deal with the Patent Office and it went with a claim that was narrower than it hoped. [00:21:35] Speaker 01: And now it is trying to come back today ignoring that and trying to get the broader claim construction and a claim construction that is extraordinary, not ordinary, because it's talking about [00:21:47] Speaker 01: language structure to permit selective access being met by a simple opening in housing. [00:22:02] Speaker 01: That's all I have, unless you have any questions. [00:22:05] Speaker 03: No one ever gets marked down for not using up all of his time. [00:22:11] Speaker 03: Thank you, Mr. Cooper. [00:22:12] Speaker 03: Mr. Farcello has a few minutes for rebuttal. [00:22:16] Speaker 03: How much time do I have, Your Honor? [00:22:18] Speaker 03: Three and a half minutes. [00:22:19] Speaker 00: Okay. [00:22:19] Speaker 00: I'll try to be as good as Mr. Cooper and not use all of it. [00:22:25] Speaker 00: We had a lot of opportunities to get the claim we wanted, but we didn't need to take any opportunities except the one shot that we took from the outset. [00:22:33] Speaker 00: Claim one, the language we're talking about was never amended. [00:22:36] Speaker 00: The only compromise that had to be struck with the examiner was to include the language of claim two about the second opening at the end of claim one. [00:22:45] Speaker 00: the claim construction that Rosen urges would leave out a huge part of the specification as the court has observed. [00:22:54] Speaker 00: It makes no sense that the claim was drafted so poorly or that the applicants never intended to cover Figures 9 and 10, which is Rosen's position. [00:23:06] Speaker 00: We didn't need to be given an opportunity in the file history to reinstate the claims. [00:23:10] Speaker 00: We could have put them back at any time. [00:23:13] Speaker 00: Like I say, there's no requirement that the examiner [00:23:16] Speaker 00: that we can do that and there's no requirement that we would have done that. [00:23:21] Speaker 00: I just want to direct the court's attention to the chart that we have in page 16 of the blue brief where you can clearly see the breakdown of the originally filed claims. [00:23:33] Speaker 00: Original claim one has the language about selective access. [00:23:37] Speaker 00: If selective means nothing, if it's redundant, we win because selective obviously must be broader. [00:23:44] Speaker 00: than any other access in the dependent claims. [00:23:47] Speaker 00: If selective means choice, and choice by the user, as we say, we win. [00:23:52] Speaker 00: The only way we lose is if selective means pivoting or moving, and it doesn't mean that. [00:23:57] Speaker 00: Claims three through five, there's nothing unusual about them. [00:24:00] Speaker 00: There's a plain vanilla kind of dependent claim where claim two added a limitation, it was a second opening limitation, and claims three through five added further limitations about where the housing is located. [00:24:11] Speaker 00: In fact, claim five [00:24:12] Speaker 00: is the one with the opening at the top of the housing. [00:24:16] Speaker 00: There's a pivoting branch and ended up in claim four. [00:24:28] Speaker 00: I'll just leave with the thought that a claim construction that avoids preferred embodiments and ignores features and embodiments that were clearly meant to be included in the scope of the claim. [00:24:41] Speaker 00: should be included within it. [00:24:43] Speaker 00: For all the reason, we've had it in the brief and I've stated here today. [00:24:45] Speaker 03: Thank you.