[00:00:00] Speaker 01: Mr. Simmons. [00:00:01] Speaker 01: Good morning, Your Honor. [00:00:02] Speaker 01: Good morning. [00:00:03] Speaker 01: You reserve three minutes for rebuttal. [00:00:04] Speaker 01: Is that correct? [00:00:05] Speaker 01: Yes, Your Honor. [00:00:05] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:00:06] Speaker 01: You may proceed. [00:00:07] Speaker 03: May it please the Court, I am John Simmons and I represent the Appellant and Patent Applicants, Michael Schor et al. [00:00:13] Speaker 03: What you have before you, Your Honor, is a classic case of impermissible hindsight reconstruction. [00:00:19] Speaker 03: It's clear throughout both applications, this is two applications, the 267 and the 269 and the 627, [00:00:28] Speaker 03: This examiner thought that this application was obvious, not based upon the priority because the examiner thought it was obvious. [00:00:34] Speaker 03: And the examiner took no less than five references to back into that conclusion, basically combining disparate isolated disclosures and then modifying that combination without explicitly saying so in order to, in hindsight, arrive at the claim of invention. [00:00:51] Speaker 03: The examiner relies on, and you can refer to their brief pages [00:00:56] Speaker 03: 14 and 15, five references. [00:00:59] Speaker 03: Abrams at A 1657, Freeman A 1487, Gerby A 1671, Ruey A 1509, and a non-analogous prior reference, Watkins at A 1569. [00:01:15] Speaker 03: In order to make this impermissible hindsight reconstruction of the case law, which we cite in our brief at page 22, which is Inray Fine and also Abbott versus Sandus, [00:01:26] Speaker 03: This is the precise type of picking and choosing analysis to deprecate the claimed invention that this court has sought to prevent. [00:01:33] Speaker 03: And to Abbott, in addressing the question of obviousness, a judge must not pick and choose amongst isolated elements from the prior art and combine them so as to yield the invention in question if some combination would not have been obvious at the time of the invention. [00:01:49] Speaker 02: Mr. Simmons, you are arguing that the Patent Office made an [00:01:55] Speaker 02: unreasonably broad interpretation of the claims. [00:01:58] Speaker 03: That's one of three things we're hearing, yes, Your Honor. [00:02:00] Speaker 02: And that the predetermined audience location, it's been appropriate to construe that to cover the entire audience, that it should be limited to a portion of an audience, right? [00:02:13] Speaker 02: Yes, Your Honor. [00:02:14] Speaker 02: This is an application that's simply pending. [00:02:18] Speaker 02: I'm sorry? [00:02:18] Speaker 02: This is simply a pending application that's on it. [00:02:21] Speaker 02: Disappeal, yes. [00:02:22] Speaker 02: Is there anything that prevents you from amending the claim to insert a predetermined portion of the audience? [00:02:33] Speaker 02: No, there's not. [00:02:34] Speaker 02: Certainly the record is crystal clear. [00:02:36] Speaker 02: So whatever patent ultimately issues is going to be encumbered by that restriction [00:02:44] Speaker 02: So you can't be worried about an unduly narrow claim. [00:02:49] Speaker 02: You're arguing that the claim should be more narrowly interpreted. [00:02:53] Speaker 02: Why not just amend it? [00:02:55] Speaker 02: Then there's no dispute about whether there's a proper claim construction or not. [00:02:59] Speaker 03: OK, so if we may be heard, because we don't think we have to. [00:03:02] Speaker 03: The claim language that surrounds the words acts because you're supposed to read the claim language in context to the words that surround it in the claim. [00:03:10] Speaker 02: Well, you don't have to, but if you don't, [00:03:12] Speaker 02: you wind up in a debate and you wind up in a situation where your patent may not ever be issued. [00:03:18] Speaker 03: Well, we actually have 10 continuations that have been allowed and granted. [00:03:22] Speaker 03: So I don't think that's the issue. [00:03:23] Speaker 03: The applicants feel strongly that the words chosen in this claim, and I will read the language to you to show you our point, should not be taken out of context. [00:03:32] Speaker 03: And basically, the reference that they rely on RUE, they actually modify it to go against its own teachings and to render that reference [00:03:41] Speaker 03: Not intended for its purpose and which is teaching away from that reference They do not look at the claim language that surrounds it. [00:03:49] Speaker 03: So in the claim and I'm reading from page 5 of their brief and it's quotes claim one Which we say is an accurate representation hang on the second sure fine Okay, so if you look at the second clause [00:04:08] Speaker 03: It says providing on a server a plurality of clips associated with the at least one artist and track for each of the plurality of venues, at least one of the plurality of clips, including footage of a predetermined audience location. [00:04:22] Speaker 03: The predetermined audience location being marked to indicate the presence within the predetermined audience location is captured for inclusion of the at least one of the plurality of clips. [00:04:33] Speaker 03: So that's the claim language that surrounds it. [00:04:35] Speaker 03: If it was the entire audience, [00:04:37] Speaker 03: there would be no reason to mark the entire audience as being included. [00:04:41] Speaker 03: That's the claim language. [00:04:42] Speaker 03: We go to the spec. [00:04:44] Speaker 03: The director does not point to any embodiment in the specification where our applicants said it can be the entire audience. [00:04:51] Speaker 03: There are instances where the applicants say it could be the entire audience. [00:04:54] Speaker 03: It could be a subset. [00:04:55] Speaker 03: They don't say that. [00:04:57] Speaker 03: The embodiments that are pointed to, and they accuse the applicants of incorporating a preferred embodiment. [00:05:02] Speaker 03: No, we're just looking at the claim language reasonably read and laid of the specification. [00:05:06] Speaker 03: at figure 10, I believe it's in, let's see, at the appendix, page 61, area 1012 in paragraphs 36 to 37, specifically show a small area, 1012, marked, [00:05:32] Speaker 03: Rui itself, Rui the reference that they used to show this entire audience, does not ever say that you could take a shot of the entire audience. [00:05:40] Speaker 03: I'm getting out of order and I'll try to bring it back full circle. [00:05:43] Speaker 03: But the Rui reference was actually for a lecture. [00:05:47] Speaker 03: So if you're recording a lecture, it was supposed to be an automated director or a smart director. [00:05:52] Speaker 03: So what it said is, I have this complicated system of microphones and calculations, and I'm going to determine in the audience who's speaking. [00:06:00] Speaker 03: Not a predetermined location, but which speaker is speaking so the cameras could focus on that individual or on the lecturer. [00:06:07] Speaker 03: So in Rui, it never mentions using the entire audience as the predetermined location, and specifically teaches away from using a predetermined location because it's looking to the location of any speaker within the audience. [00:06:20] Speaker 03: So we wouldn't know if speaker on the further left side of the room was speaking to focus in on him or her versus the speaker in the middle of the room to focus in on him or her. [00:06:30] Speaker 03: So I say that we don't have to amend the claims, because if we amend the claims, then that can be interpreted as a narrowing of the claims for doctrine of equivalence. [00:06:39] Speaker 03: This applicant intends to license and to enforce these patents. [00:06:42] Speaker 02: You don't think the prosecution history that contains all the arguments you're making here today wouldn't be a limiting in prosecution history of stock? [00:06:56] Speaker 02: It would be in claim construction. [00:06:57] Speaker 02: You're absolutely correct. [00:06:58] Speaker 03: But an absolute underlining of a word... What do you lose by just making the claim... Festo. [00:07:05] Speaker 03: ...explicit? [00:07:06] Speaker 03: Festo prosecution history estoppel. [00:07:08] Speaker 03: So if we amend that term, then that term is going to have no equivalence. [00:07:11] Speaker 03: And we don't think that the applicant, more importantly, doesn't think that that's necessary based upon the surrounding claim language and based upon the supporting specification which shows a subset, section 1012, figure 10, of the audience being marked. [00:07:26] Speaker 02: Do you think amendment-based estoppel is worse than argument-based estoppel? [00:07:32] Speaker 02: Based on the case law that we're aware of, yes. [00:07:35] Speaker 01: Are the family members of the application that contain the same claim language? [00:07:39] Speaker 03: This is the broadest claim language. [00:07:41] Speaker 03: This is the great-great-great-great-great-grandparent. [00:07:43] Speaker 03: So this is the original non-provisional application. [00:07:46] Speaker 03: The claims in the allowed granted patents have similar but different variations of the language. [00:07:54] Speaker 03: but this is admittedly the broadest claim language, which is why the applicants wanted to pursue this on appeal. [00:07:58] Speaker 03: They felt that this examiner, rightfully or wrongfully, took a whole bunch of references and piled them together. [00:08:05] Speaker 03: Now we understand, we didn't argue this, that you can take any number of references, but every time you add a reference, there has to be an articulated reason why you would combine those references and how you would modify it if you're going to modify it. [00:08:17] Speaker 03: In this case, the examiner put four references together that were arguably related, [00:08:22] Speaker 03: audio-visual recording of a performance or a lecture. [00:08:26] Speaker 03: And then he added a fifth reference, which was not related, which was the Watkins reference, which is not analogous art, which the Watkins reference was directed to a security system. [00:08:37] Speaker 03: I believe if you look at the Watkins reference, the cover page at A1569, or actually figure two, [00:08:50] Speaker 03: makes it clear, figure two of Watkins, which is A1571. [00:08:54] Speaker 03: So the whole gist of Watkins is you have a security system. [00:08:58] Speaker 03: So an adult and a child enter into a secure facility, let's say a daycare or a store, and an image is taken of both the child and the adult at the entrance and or exit. [00:09:08] Speaker 03: So you can see in figure two, the mark is a predetermined mark, 48, is at the entrance or exit. [00:09:15] Speaker 03: That's all the examiner relies on for Watkins, is that it teaches a mark, a predetermined mark. [00:09:20] Speaker 03: We acknowledge Watkins teaches a predetermined mark. [00:09:22] Speaker 03: It doesn't teach a predetermined mark in an audience. [00:09:25] Speaker 03: It teaches it at the entrance or exit. [00:09:27] Speaker 03: That's the extent the examiner uses it for. [00:09:29] Speaker 01: But we argue it's not analogous R. The question here isn't whether the claims claim a mark, a location being marked to indicate the presence within a predetermined [00:09:45] Speaker 01: It seems to me that your main complaint is that the term, predetermined audience location, has been interpreted too broadly. [00:09:57] Speaker 03: I would say that's one of our main complaints. [00:09:59] Speaker 01: There's actually three. [00:10:00] Speaker 01: OK, well, that one. [00:10:02] Speaker 01: And if you lose there, you lose. [00:10:08] Speaker 01: Because your next argument is that [00:10:13] Speaker 01: Even if you lose, then the prior art doesn't apply. [00:10:19] Speaker 03: The second argument is that twofold. [00:10:23] Speaker 03: One, that what they're using the fourth and fifth references for, they being the examiner and now the director by adopting the examiner's position, is that they're taking Rui and saying that it teaches the entire audience as a shot, which is never disclosed in Rui. [00:10:40] Speaker 03: But Rui admittedly, [00:10:42] Speaker 03: the director admits, Rui doesn't teach a predetermined location. [00:10:45] Speaker 03: So even if he said the predetermined audience location was broader than what we assert, which I disagree with, but we'll argue on that. [00:10:53] Speaker 03: Then you go and look at the reference Watkins that they're trying to modify the combination of Abrams, Freeman, Gervey, and Rui, which there's no explanation really why they go together, but we'll just assume they can. [00:11:06] Speaker 03: The Watkins reference does not teach [00:11:09] Speaker 03: using that predetermined location to be an audience location, and it's not analogous art. [00:11:15] Speaker 03: The examiner never said it's analogous art. [00:11:17] Speaker 03: In four office actions, two examiner answers, and the board and the director merely pay lip service to saying why it's analogous art and accuse us of waiving it. [00:11:26] Speaker 03: While we may not have used the magic incantation that it's analogous art and not analogous art, we said Watkins isn't the same as the references. [00:11:34] Speaker 03: Watkins is directed at taking a still image, not video and audio, [00:11:38] Speaker 03: And using that still image to compare it to a second still image taken when the adult and child leave the secure facility. [00:11:44] Speaker 03: And they compare it. [00:11:45] Speaker 03: So you have still images, not video, clips. [00:11:48] Speaker 03: All the other references are directed to video clips that can be edited. [00:11:51] Speaker 03: So these still images are used with data processing, such as facial recognition, to determine if the right child is living with the right adult. [00:11:59] Speaker 03: It's not an analogous art. [00:12:01] Speaker 03: So merely plucking out of it the predetermined location, because there happens to be a camera, is [00:12:08] Speaker 03: The definition of impermissible hindsight reconstruction, picking and choosing isolated disclosures amongst the references. [00:12:14] Speaker 03: That's what we're accusing them of. [00:12:16] Speaker 03: So even if you disregard our interpretation of predetermined audits location, which we do not think you can do. [00:12:23] Speaker 03: I think the examiner and the director have taken a really broad reading. [00:12:27] Speaker 03: These references don't go together. [00:12:28] Speaker 03: And that's a matter of law. [00:12:29] Speaker 03: They have to say a reason why they're combinable and a reason why it's analogous art. [00:12:34] Speaker 03: Never does the examiner say it's analogous art. [00:12:35] Speaker 03: If you look, for example, at one of the office actions, [00:12:38] Speaker 03: You're into your rebuttal time. [00:12:41] Speaker 03: I'll reserve my my time, but if you put you put you to a site at 732 through 734 This is typical of all the office actions and the answers the examiner merely says in an analogous art Gerby in an analogous art Rui in an analogous art Watkins. [00:12:59] Speaker 03: There's no why That's the examiner's duty the examiner did not do his job here and our applicants feel that they don't need to amend their claims because of that [00:13:08] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:13:12] Speaker 01: Mr. McBride. [00:13:15] Speaker 00: Yes. [00:13:16] Speaker 00: Good afternoon. [00:13:17] Speaker 00: May it please the court? [00:13:19] Speaker 00: There's three issues I'd like to touch upon. [00:13:21] Speaker 00: The first is the claim construction issue that was discussed. [00:13:27] Speaker 00: The director's position is that the board correctly applied the broadest reasonable interpretation to construe the predetermined audience location limitation as being any part of the audience [00:13:38] Speaker 00: or and including the entire audience. [00:13:42] Speaker 00: And that's a reasonable construction because the specification and the short application, it doesn't define what a predetermined audience location is. [00:13:52] Speaker 00: It doesn't even use the word predetermined in the specification. [00:13:55] Speaker 00: It doesn't use the word marked. [00:13:57] Speaker 00: That's introduced into the claims by amendments. [00:14:00] Speaker 00: So we really have very little to go on other than figure 10, which is at A61 of the record. [00:14:09] Speaker 00: And figure 10 just shows that this audience location is element 1012, which is just a hashed box. [00:14:20] Speaker 00: And the specification, if you look at paragraphs 36 to 39, at A47 and A48 of the record, the specification actually says that figure 10 is simply a preferred embodiment [00:14:35] Speaker 00: It's not limiting on the scope of the invention. [00:14:38] Speaker 00: And that one of skill and the art would understand that you can make modifications to this layout. [00:14:43] Speaker 00: You can move the cameras around, for example. [00:14:46] Speaker 00: So in light of that, I don't think the board's construction of that term, although broad, is unreasonable. [00:14:52] Speaker 00: And also, as Your Honor pointed out, the applicant could have amended the claim to more clearly articulate what the scope was in a number of ways. [00:15:01] Speaker 00: The second issue I'd like to touch upon [00:15:03] Speaker 00: is how the board correctly found that the prior art rendered obvious, the marking a predetermined audience location. [00:15:10] Speaker 00: First, the examiner and the board found that RUE taught taking video clips of specific audience members, and it also disclosed taking pictures of the general audience when a person wasn't asking a question. [00:15:26] Speaker 00: And this is in the record at A1518 and paragraph 15 of RUE, a specific [00:15:32] Speaker 00: specifically talks about how it's following these predetermined expert rules of videography to include video clips of the lecturer, and then when someone in the audience asks a question, you pan and zoom to that particular person, but it also says to make the video more enjoyable to the viewer, you should also include general shots of the audience when no one's asking a question. [00:15:53] Speaker 00: And this is very clearly pointed out at A1526 of the record. [00:15:59] Speaker 00: That's Rui, paragraph 16. [00:16:01] Speaker 00: It talks about [00:16:03] Speaker 00: one way you can go about taking a picture of the general audience. [00:16:11] Speaker 00: And it actually says, this is the paragraph A1526, paragraph 116. [00:16:15] Speaker 00: It spans the bottom of column one and goes across to the top of two. [00:16:24] Speaker 00: It talks about including general shots of the audience members, and it says you do that by doing a slow pan from one side of the lecture room to the other. [00:16:33] Speaker 00: So I think that makes it very clear. [00:16:34] Speaker 00: That's a predetermined audience location. [00:16:37] Speaker 00: That's not a single audience member. [00:16:38] Speaker 00: That's the entire audience. [00:16:40] Speaker 00: And you're panning from one side of the lecture to the other. [00:16:45] Speaker 00: And with regard to the random transitions, Rui also speaks to this at paragraph, I'm sorry, at A1527, the next page, in paragraph 128. [00:16:56] Speaker 00: In the last sentence, it talks about, at a microscopic level, [00:17:01] Speaker 00: each camera transition is random, resulting in an interesting video. [00:17:06] Speaker 00: But it says at a macroscopic level, the transitions, they're not random. [00:17:09] Speaker 00: They're actually following the expert rules of video production. [00:17:13] Speaker 00: So they're not random shots. [00:17:14] Speaker 00: The transitions change, but they're following the rules. [00:17:17] Speaker 00: If someone talks, you're going to pan and zoom over here. [00:17:20] Speaker 00: If the lecturer is talking, you're going to pan and zoom to the lecturer. [00:17:23] Speaker 00: And if no one's asking a question, you're going to include occasional shots of the audience. [00:17:27] Speaker 00: Now, another [00:17:29] Speaker 00: important point here is the board didn't rely exclusively on the teachings of Ruhi. [00:17:34] Speaker 00: The board actually said they found that marking a part of or the entire audience would have been obvious to the skilled artisan. [00:17:42] Speaker 00: They say that on page five of the board decision at A6, and they follow up and they go into more detail in Rebutting Shor's arguments at page A8. [00:17:56] Speaker 00: They actually say below the block [00:17:59] Speaker 00: quote on A8, they actually say, they're not persuaded that it wouldn't have been obvious to mark a predetermined audience location as taught by Rui. [00:18:07] Speaker 00: But then they say, moreover, they're not persuaded that it wouldn't have been obvious, based on the teachings of the prior as a whole, to include various types of clips, including a predetermined audience location. [00:18:19] Speaker 00: And they found that it was just a combination of all familiar elements to achieve predictable results. [00:18:25] Speaker 00: And Schor doesn't rebut that argument. [00:18:28] Speaker 00: The board also said that just marking a predetermined audience location was not uniquely challenging. [00:18:35] Speaker 00: And the last issue I'd like to touch upon was the printed matter rejection. [00:18:39] Speaker 00: This was an additional rejection that's not required to affirm the board's obviousness rejection. [00:18:45] Speaker 00: But the arguments that Shor asserts here do fall within the printed matter doctrine under this court's precedence in Enrae de Stefano. [00:18:54] Speaker 00: It's a two-part test. [00:18:55] Speaker 00: First, you identify whether it's printed matter, and the test is whether [00:18:58] Speaker 00: the subject matter is claimed for its content, for its communication content. [00:19:05] Speaker 00: And here, the video clips are just communicating the events that happened at the live event at the particular location that's being recorded. [00:19:14] Speaker 00: And then the second part of that test is whether the printed matter structurally or functionally affects the substrate, which in this case is the server upon which the clips are stored. [00:19:24] Speaker 00: And here, the clips don't affect the structure of the server. [00:19:27] Speaker 00: They don't affect how it functions or operates. [00:19:29] Speaker 00: Users can access that server in the exact same way, regardless of the content that is recorded. [00:19:36] Speaker 02: The content of the clips may not affect the structure of the server, but the content of the clips is intimately and directly involved in the overall method that's being claimed, is it not? [00:19:54] Speaker 02: Otherwise, isn't that the whole point? [00:19:56] Speaker 02: is that you're going to have various clips with particular content that you can use to make a custom presentation? [00:20:06] Speaker 00: That's exactly right. [00:20:07] Speaker 00: And the fact that you're pointing the camera at a particular location, whether it's the band or someplace in the backstage or the audience where people are tailgating, just because you're focusing on a different location doesn't make that somehow patentable. [00:20:22] Speaker 00: And Shor's argument that you'd have to actually add a camera to the venue to focus on the audience doesn't make it patentable. [00:20:29] Speaker 00: All the primary references disclose using multiple cameras. [00:20:33] Speaker 02: I guess I'm just having a little difficulty as to why the printed matter doctrine is even relevant to this. [00:20:40] Speaker 00: I can understand that, because when I first read it, I had to wrap my mind around it, too. [00:20:45] Speaker 00: But I look at it this way. [00:20:47] Speaker 00: The video clips are really not words. [00:20:51] Speaker 00: They're pictures. [00:20:52] Speaker 00: They're images. [00:20:52] Speaker 00: And they record what's going on. [00:20:55] Speaker 00: But they're really, if you look at the doctrine of the printed matter doctrine, printed matter is just subject matter claimed for what it communicates. [00:21:03] Speaker 00: And here, the video clips, their only purpose is to communicate the events that occurred at the event. [00:21:09] Speaker 00: So if you agree with that, it's printed matter. [00:21:15] Speaker 00: Then step two, it's clear that the video clips, however it's stored on the server or on a DVD that you create, [00:21:21] Speaker 00: it's not going to structurally affect that substrate, the server or the DVD, and it's not going to affect how that DVD or the server functions. [00:21:30] Speaker 00: So I think, although it may be difficult to initially get your mind wrapped around this, because printed matter traditionally is words that are printed on something or symbols that are printed on something, I think it does fall within the doctrine as this court outlined in the rate of Stefano. [00:21:47] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:21:47] Speaker 00: Unless there's further questions, I'll sit down. [00:21:49] Speaker 01: Thank you very much. [00:21:58] Speaker 03: briefly on a couple of things that the solicitor touched on. [00:22:02] Speaker 03: He said that the board found that we're not persuaded that these references, the teachings of the site of references to provide various clips, including clips of predetermined audience locations, to mark the presence indicated with it, would not be obvious. [00:22:18] Speaker 03: There's no evidentiary support cited. [00:22:20] Speaker 03: So it's the same thing that the examiner is guilty of, that the board just found that this is obvious. [00:22:27] Speaker 03: They said, oh, we would have found it obvious to make that teaching in the reference, but they're not pointing to anything in the reference. [00:22:33] Speaker 03: It's just the board saying it. [00:22:34] Speaker 03: There's nothing to support that position. [00:22:37] Speaker 03: Same thing with any part of the audience or the entire audience. [00:22:41] Speaker 03: There's no evidentiary support in RUE that the entire audience is in RUE. [00:22:46] Speaker 03: In fact, when the solicitor read, he said, the slow pan from one side to the other. [00:22:51] Speaker 03: A pan does not include the entire audience all at once. [00:22:55] Speaker 03: In fact, RUE never says that. [00:22:56] Speaker 03: Rui only talks about going to the person who is speaking or doing a pan of the audience for the audience or for the viewer's enjoyment so they don't get bored looking at the lecturer. [00:23:10] Speaker 03: Back at the specification paragraphs 36 and 39 of our application, which is at A48 and 49, the solicitor pointed to boilerplate language saying that this could be, this is a preferred embodiment, but other embodiments could apply. [00:23:26] Speaker 03: relies on boilerplate language, especially if it was to help our side. [00:23:30] Speaker 03: But nonetheless, our applicant never said that the predetermined audience location could be the entire audience. [00:23:39] Speaker 03: In fact, to the contrary, the preferred embodiment, pretty much the only embodiment that's described in detail, says that the predetermined audience location is a sub-spot. [00:23:49] Speaker 03: ticket holder and you want to go get your video of you at that venue so you can later create a video of you and the musical performance and link those together. [00:23:58] Speaker 03: That's what the concept of the predetermined audience location was for. [00:24:01] Speaker 03: That's what's described in the specification and that's how it's claimed. [00:24:05] Speaker 03: If there are no further questions. [00:24:06] Speaker 03: No, thank you. [00:24:07] Speaker 03: Thank you very much for your time. [00:24:09] Speaker 01: Have a great day.