[00:00:00] Speaker 03:
Interface ink versus 10 dust sentry docking number 15-1475

[00:00:41] Speaker 00:
attorney to care did I pronounce it correctly okay you're reserving five minutes of your 15th for rebuttal is that correct okay you may proceed good morning your honors may it please the court I'd like to address issues that warrant finding patentability of interfaces claims 20 through 24 of the 473 patents and one and four of the 282 patents

[00:01:08] Speaker 00:
First, the board's erroneous construction of the sufficient shear strength limitation to encompass resistance to vertical movement.

[00:01:15] Speaker 00:
And second, the board's erroneous conclusion of obviousness over the combination of kineshita and pasión.

[00:01:23] Speaker 00:
So first, the claim construction.

[00:01:26] Speaker 00:
The claims require an adhesive layer with sufficient shear strength so that the connector will prevent adjacent tiles from moving relative to the connector or each other, thereby creating gaps between the adjacent tiles after installation.

[00:01:38] Speaker 00:
As the board acknowledged, there's a plain and ordinary meaning for sheer.

[00:01:42] Speaker 00:
It's a force that acts in a direction parallel to the plane of contact between two surfaces.

[00:01:48] Speaker 00:
And the claim specifies that we're talking about the sheer strength of an adhesive layer as it is installed.

[00:01:54] Speaker 00:
It's spanning the seam between adjacent carpet tiles.

[00:01:57] Speaker 00:
It's adhered to the carpet tile backing.

[00:01:59] Speaker 00:
It's flat on the floor.

[00:02:01] Speaker 00:
The plane of contact between the adhesive layer and the tile backing is horizontal.

[00:02:05] Speaker 03:
It appears to me that the

[00:02:08] Speaker 03:
The patent here, the invention, is reflected in the prior art of Kinoshita.

[00:02:15] Speaker 03:
It's almost identical.

[00:02:17] Speaker 03:
What differences are you arguing?

[00:02:20] Speaker 00:
Well, Kinoshita discloses only pieces of adhesive tape.

[00:02:26] Speaker 00:
Kinoshita describes three ways to tape carpet tiles together.

[00:02:29] Speaker 00:
It's adhesive tape, just like the patent specification, distinguished as an unsuccessful attempt

[00:02:35] Speaker 00:
to solve the problem faced by the inventors.

[00:02:38] Speaker 00:
The tape of Keenashita does not have the sufficient shear strength limitation.

[00:02:44] Speaker 00:
I'll start back up a step.

[00:02:46] Speaker 00:
The board recognized that Keenashita does not disclose all of the characteristics of the invention.

[00:02:51] Speaker 00:
The board recognized Keenashita doesn't have the sufficient stiffness limitation.

[00:02:55] Speaker 00:
It reached out to Passione for that, a reference that doesn't have anything to do with taping carpet tiles together, but discloses a continuous anchor sheet subfloor

[00:03:04] Speaker 00:
these rigid, thick, abutting anchor sheets with fabric pieces stuck onto the top by a hook and loop system.

[00:03:11] Speaker 00:
In looking at Kinoshita, the board also acknowledged that Kinoshita is silent.

[00:03:15] Speaker 00:
It doesn't tell you anything about the characteristics of the tape pieces.

[00:03:18] Speaker 00:
The board inferred the sufficient shear strength limitation.

[00:03:22] Speaker 00:
And that finding is not supported by substantial evidence.

[00:03:27] Speaker 00:
The board relied first on what it characterized as its common sense conclusion.

[00:03:32] Speaker 00:
that when Kinoshita talks about the fact that the taped together carpet tiles won't rise up and peel off under a vacuum, it's actually disclosing resistance to lateral shear force.

[00:03:42] Speaker 00:
The board said anyone would know that when you run a vacuum over a carpeted surface, you're generating not only vertical suction but also lateral shear.

[00:03:50] Speaker 00:
There's not a shred of evidence in the record to support that the relevant person of ordinary skill in 2004 would have believed

[00:03:59] Speaker 00:
that the rising up and peeling off language of Kineshita disclosed the sufficient sheer strength limitation.

[00:04:05] Speaker 00:
And it was improper for the board to substitute its conjecture about the force vectors created by vacuuming for evidence about the understanding of a person of ordinary skill.

[00:04:16] Speaker 01:
I guess, are you disputing it?

[00:04:19] Speaker 01:
Are you disputing that when you're vacuuming your carpet, there aren't some horizontal forces that are being applied as the vacuum cleaner is

[00:04:28] Speaker 01:
crossing over all the carpet tiles?

[00:04:31] Speaker 00:
Well, Your Honor, there wasn't a chance to build a record on this below, because the first time this came up was in the final written decision.

[00:04:37] Speaker 00:
But yes.

[00:04:38] Speaker 01:
You are disputing it.

[00:04:39] Speaker 01:
It's purely vertical forces that are occurring during the Vacuuming Act.

[00:04:45] Speaker 00:
There are multiple forces created during the Vacuuming Act, and they all have a vertical component.

[00:04:51] Speaker 00:
OK.

[00:04:51] Speaker 04:
The ones that have a vertical component.

[00:04:53] Speaker 04:
But when you say they have a vertical component,

[00:04:57] Speaker 04:
suggests that they have other components as well, which are not vertical.

[00:05:00] Speaker 04:
That is, that they have at least some vector lateralness to it.

[00:05:04] Speaker 00:
Well, and again, there wasn't a record built on this below.

[00:05:07] Speaker 00:
The sufficient shear strength limitation of the invention relates to a purely lateral shear force.

[00:05:15] Speaker 04:
And the one thing that is common sense about that... Well, if something resists both pulling and stretching, it may be able to resist

[00:05:25] Speaker 04:
force in both directions at the same time, you would still agree that it resists, it has shear strength, right?

[00:05:32] Speaker 04:
I mean, the shear strength doesn't mean it can only have resistance to lateral pressures.

[00:05:39] Speaker 00:
Something that has sufficient shear strength may also have, for example, sufficient bond strength to resist being torn apart in a different direction.

[00:05:47] Speaker 00:
But sufficient shear strength specifically relates to resistance to forces in this lateral plane.

[00:05:55] Speaker 03:
But wouldn't a person skilled in the art look at that and say, gee, all I need to do here is to select an adhesive that would keep the tile in place during vacuuming?

[00:06:05] Speaker 00:
With knowledge of interfaces invention, perhaps.

[00:06:09] Speaker 00:
But the evidence is that a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention knew one thing about adhesive tape, and that's that it would not work.

[00:06:17] Speaker 00:
Everything about the art taught against using adhesive tape.

[00:06:20] Speaker 00:
There was a long accepted understanding in the industry

[00:06:23] Speaker 00:
that adhesive tape would not work to hold adjacent carpet tiles together against lateral gapping.

[00:06:29] Speaker 01:
That's what your inventor says in the specification, right?

[00:06:34] Speaker 01:
And then the inventor found some off-the-shelf adhesives, the 3M cells, and identified those as having sufficient shear strength so that the carpet tiles would be able to be fitted together for their intended use to have

[00:06:53] Speaker 01:
a contiguous carpet that doesn't fall apart.

[00:06:57] Speaker 00:
I believe Your Honor is referring to the declaration submitted by inventor Keith Gray in the IPR proceedings.

[00:07:03] Speaker 00:
And the specification of the patent?

[00:07:05] Speaker 00:
Well, the specification of the patent distinguishes adhesive tape because it's as an unsuccessful prior art attempt to solve the problem that the connectors solved.

[00:07:15] Speaker 00:
Mr. Gray in the IPR proceedings testified that after he had worked on a project for glue-less installation, after

[00:07:23] Speaker 00:
He had discussed this idea of using adhesive but not using it to glue the tiles to the floor.

[00:07:28] Speaker 00:
And after he had arrived at the idea of a connector that would connect carpet tiles and withstand lower movement without gluing them to the floor, then he went to a third party.

[00:07:38] Speaker 00:
He went then to a fabricator.

[00:07:40] Speaker 00:
And it took the fabricator 14 to 30 days to come up with a prototype

[00:07:45] Speaker 00:
that was subjected to further testing in-house and in the field.

[00:07:48] Speaker 00:
So it wasn't as simple as going to an adhesive tape manufacturer and saying, give me the one that works for carpet tile installation, identifying, you know, the evidence is, in fact, there was no tape in the art that was ever developed, designed, or successfully used for carpet tile installation.

[00:08:06] Speaker 00:
And Tandis's tape expert told us that identifying a tape that would be suitable for a particular purpose like

[00:08:14] Speaker 00:
resisting lateral gapping between adjacent carpet tiles would involve a multitude of choices.

[00:08:19] Speaker 00:
First to identify the core functions the tape must perform and then he said there are thousands of choices that would need to be made to identify the right film, the right adhesive, the right combination of film and adhesive to test those combinations to see if they would fulfill

[00:08:35] Speaker 00:
the core functions.

[00:08:36] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:08:37] Speaker 01:
And I guess, you know, you're telling us that all the evidence points in the direction that nobody knew how to find the right kind of adhesive.

[00:08:46] Speaker 01:
And at a minimum, we have Kinnoshita and Bassione that suggest, you know, alternatives of just using adhesive to stick the, you know, what we'll call the connector to the bottom of the carpet tiles.

[00:09:03] Speaker 01:
And so

[00:09:04] Speaker 01:
Isn't there an inference there that at least from those two people's perspectives, one of skill in the art would be able to find the right kind of adhesive to make the carpet tiles work for their intended purpose?

[00:09:20] Speaker 00:
Well, at least two things.

[00:09:22] Speaker 00:
First, the evidence of what actually happened in the real world works against that.

[00:09:28] Speaker 00:
Kinoshita came out in 1991.

[00:09:31] Speaker 00:
And until Interface came up with its inventive connectors, no one was using connectors with an adhesive layer to install carpet tiles.

[00:09:39] Speaker 00:
No one was even using adhesive tape.

[00:09:42] Speaker 00:
After Interface came out with its connectors, almost all of its competitors rushed to market with their own connectors.

[00:09:48] Speaker 00:
Tandis is actually one of them.

[00:09:49] Speaker 00:
Tandis applied to patent its version of the connectors.

[00:09:54] Speaker 00:
It described its connectors as including the same characteristics and serving the same function as Interface's connectors.

[00:10:00] Speaker 00:
And it relied on results of testing interfaces connectors in its patent application.

[00:10:05] Speaker 00:
That was powerful evidence of non-obviousness that the board completely ignored.

[00:10:11] Speaker 01:
Just curious, do you have any patent claims anywhere in the portfolio that recite the specific attributes of the ideal adhesive that works?

[00:10:22] Speaker 01:
Because right now, this particular claim, when it says sufficient shear strength so that the carpet doesn't fall apart, to me, that's

[00:10:30] Speaker 01:
It feels a little result-oriented, saying, use an adhesive that works.

[00:10:36] Speaker 01:
Any adhesive that works, we're claiming it.

[00:10:39] Speaker 01:
That's how I read this claim.

[00:10:41] Speaker 01:
Now, do you have other claims somewhere that's identifying more specifically the kinds of physical attributes of the adhesive that kind of more concretely tie down what kinds of adhesive are the magic adhesives?

[00:11:00] Speaker 00:
With respect to the sufficient sheer strength of the adhesive, the claim simply identifies that core requirement.

[00:11:07] Speaker 00:
The specification of the patent provides a great deal of information about specific attributes of the adhesive and provides specific examples of the adhesive.

[00:11:14] Speaker 03:
What are those attributes in the specification?

[00:11:16] Speaker 03:
Does it actually provide attributes or does it say that the adhesive must be strong enough?

[00:11:22] Speaker 00:
The specification gives three specific examples of adhesives that will have sufficient shear strength and be compatible with specific backings.

[00:11:30] Speaker 00:
But in terms of defining the shear strength, it does define the shear strength in terms of what it is sufficient to resist.

[00:11:38] Speaker 00:
In a sense, it's functional claiming.

[00:11:42] Speaker 00:
But that's all right, as long as the function isn't inherent in the prior art.

[00:11:48] Speaker 00:
And I'd submit the function isn't inherent in the prior art.

[00:11:52] Speaker 00:
Kinoshita just discloses pieces of adhesive tape.

[00:11:56] Speaker 00:
One could look at Kinoshita and speculate that those pieces of adhesive tape may have had sufficient sheer strength to resist lateral movement of carpet tiles away from each other after they're installed.

[00:12:07] Speaker 00:
But there's nothing in Kinoshita that dictates that it's necessarily so.

[00:12:12] Speaker 03:
OK, you're in the rebuttal time.

[00:12:14] Speaker 00:
My apologies, Your Honor.

[00:12:15] Speaker 03:
It's OK.

[00:12:18] Speaker 00:
And thank you.

[00:12:24] Speaker 03:
Mr. Herman.

[00:12:25] Speaker 02:
Your Honors, good morning.

[00:12:25] Speaker 02:
May it please the court?

[00:12:29] Speaker 02:
Substantial evidence controls almost all of the issues here, and the board did a very thorough job of reviewing the record and reviewing the expert testimony on both sides to come to what we believe is a very well-reasoned and substantially supported decision.

[00:12:46] Speaker 02:
There are only two supposed key limitations to the claims that Mr. Kerr just talked about.

[00:12:51] Speaker 02:
It's the sheer strength limitation

[00:12:53] Speaker 02:
and sufficiently stiff.

[00:12:54] Speaker 02:
And the shear strength limitation, the only mention in the patent about what that means is that it is sufficient shear strength to prevent the tiles from moving relative to the connectors or each other, and thereby creating gaps between adjacent tiles after installation.

[00:13:13] Speaker 02:
That's column seven, line six through nine.

[00:13:15] Speaker 02:
There's nothing else in the record.

[00:13:17] Speaker 02:
If you look at Keenashita, and Ms.

[00:13:20] Speaker 02:
DeKare pointed to Dr. Jensen and said that

[00:13:23] Speaker 02:
He said there was a multitude of possibilities.

[00:13:25] Speaker 02:
Dr. Jensen was a PhD tape engineer from 3M, who Interface chose not to even cross-examine on any of his opinions with respect to the prior art.

[00:13:37] Speaker 02:
So when he said that when he sees kinoshita, it discloses sufficient shear strength, they didn't even cross-examine him on that point.

[00:13:45] Speaker 02:
The fact that Interface says over and over that adhesive tape didn't work, that is belied by the evidence.

[00:13:51] Speaker 02:
It's very clear, and this is both Anderson, Bradford, and Wood, three of the experts employed by, or retained by Interface, they were also, they were talking about duct tape, something you could buy from the hardware store and put for a temporary installation.

[00:14:08] Speaker 02:
The record shows, however, that the adhesive tape of Kinoshita, where it talks about having double-sided adhesive tape and having different power, Kinoshita recognized

[00:14:19] Speaker 02:
that, or it discloses an adhesive tape that has more properties than the duct tape that you could buy from a hardware store.

[00:14:29] Speaker 02:
And you can tell that, Your Honors, by the fact that Kineshiva talks about linking the tiles together and being able to, the carpet tiles could be raised up and stay linked.

[00:14:39] Speaker 02:
If you're gonna stay linked, you're gonna stay together in the horizontal direction.

[00:14:43] Speaker 02:
In addition to the vertical direction, like Judge Chen pointed out with the vacuuming,

[00:14:48] Speaker 02:
vacuuming is going to prevent both vertical and horizontal movement.

[00:14:53] Speaker 02:
So the sufficient shear strength is clearly taught by Kineshi that even if Interface's clamp construction is adopted.

[00:15:06] Speaker 02:
Also, Interface talks about the process here.

[00:15:11] Speaker 02:
And they made a very big deal about saying that this was a long and arduous process.

[00:15:17] Speaker 02:
and that Keith Gray, who was identified by one of the interface inventors as the key inventor here, what he did was he called up a tape manufacturer and received immediately an off-the-shelf adhesive that worked, that was used for automotive decals.

[00:15:35] Speaker 02:
So if you come up with this idea, let's use adhesive tape, without recognizing that Keenashita already solved the problem that interface says their invention solved, and he calls up an adhesive tape manufacturer

[00:15:47] Speaker 02:
Voila, he has the tape that he needs for the invention.

[00:15:51] Speaker 02:
That's not an invention.

[00:15:52] Speaker 02:
There's nothing there.

[00:15:53] Speaker 02:
There's nothing patentable.

[00:16:01] Speaker 02:
In addition, I mentioned what is said in the specification about sufficient shear strength.

[00:16:07] Speaker 02:
You'll note that there's no values.

[00:16:08] Speaker 02:
There's no data.

[00:16:10] Speaker 02:
There's no examples of what the sufficient shear strength would be.

[00:16:16] Speaker 02:
what we say is that it's a carpet tile that works.

[00:16:19] Speaker 02:
It's a connector that keeps the carpet tiles together.

[00:16:23] Speaker 02:
They point to the definition of gap as the kind of the basis for saying that gap means that it refers only to horizontal movement.

[00:16:33] Speaker 02:
This was proven to be incorrect.

[00:16:36] Speaker 02:
First of all, there are dictionary definitions at the board that said gap just means an opening or space.

[00:16:40] Speaker 02:
It's not limited to being lateral.

[00:16:44] Speaker 02:
testimony from one of the inventors, Keith Gray, said that that is not a term of art.

[00:16:48] Speaker 02:
And then there are experts.

[00:16:50] Speaker 02:
In fact, Benny Wood was one of their experts.

[00:16:53] Speaker 02:
And he was involved in writing the standard for carpet tile installation.

[00:16:58] Speaker 02:
And he said it's called the ANSI standard.

[00:17:00] Speaker 02:
And he said, well, that defines GAP as only referring to the lateral movement.

[00:17:07] Speaker 02:
And we didn't have that ANSI standard because it wasn't in his expert report, his declaration.

[00:17:13] Speaker 02:
So during the two hours in between, we got the anti-standard.

[00:17:18] Speaker 02:
And lo and behold, it doesn't define gap as only referring to lateral movement.

[00:17:23] Speaker 02:
So then he backtracked and said, well, they must have gotten it wrong, and that he was going to call them out of the woods and tell them that they got it wrong.

[00:17:30] Speaker 02:
And the same anti-standard that he was relying on says that dimensional stability is still a problem.

[00:17:36] Speaker 02:
Dimensional stability refers to the ability of a carpet tile to lay flat.

[00:17:40] Speaker 02:
So the ANSI standard that Mr. Wood relied on actually says that gaps can cause from a lack of dimensional stability, meaning that it can be caused by vertical movement.

[00:17:52] Speaker 02:
I think it's also important to note, Your Honors, that even if the claim construction, if you agree with interface that the claim construction only is restricted to lateral movement, which we believe is not the case, Kideshita and Pacion still disclose that limitation.

[00:18:15] Speaker 02:
As this court is well aware, this is a substantial evidence standard.

[00:18:19] Speaker 02:
The claim construction has significant expert and other testimony with it so that it is a deferential standard under TEVA.

[00:18:28] Speaker 02:
The obvious findings, while they can be reviewed de novo, there's a lot of testimony, a lot of expert opinions that the board really did a good job of going through and finding that the claims were obvious.

[00:18:49] Speaker 02:
We also noted, although Ms.

[00:18:50] Speaker 02:
DeCare did not bring them up on her opening, that there are a lot of new arguments that were raised, primarily with respect to the Pacion reference.

[00:18:58] Speaker 02:
And these were brought up on the first time on appeal, and so they've been waived.

[00:19:04] Speaker 02:
I assume Ms.

[00:19:05] Speaker 02:
DeCare is going to discuss secondary considerations in her rebuttal time.

[00:19:12] Speaker 02:
And I just wanted to note for the record that

[00:19:19] Speaker 02:
The board did a very thorough job of going through each of the secondary considerations that Interface relies on, and they said for each one there is no nexus.

[00:19:31] Speaker 02:
For instance, with respect to long-fell need, the board correctly found that Kinoshita and Pacion already did it.

[00:19:37] Speaker 02:
They already had the glueless insulation method, so the problem had already been solved.

[00:19:42] Speaker 02:
With respect to skepticism, the board found that there

[00:19:46] Speaker 02:
There was no experts that had any or those of ordinary skill in the art that were skeptical of this invention.

[00:19:52] Speaker 02:
It was merely some customers that were approached.

[00:19:55] Speaker 02:
With respect to commercial success, again, they don't show that any of the commercial success was related to the merits of the claimed invention.

[00:20:04] Speaker 02:
There were lots of reasons identified in the record for the increased sales, including that the connectors, the interface connectors were less expensive.

[00:20:13] Speaker 02:
There was a return policy.

[00:20:14] Speaker 02:
recycling and reduced waste, none of these are in the patents and there's evidence that there was a very aggressive marketing campaign with respect to the interface connectors, the tactile that established those were the reasons why the sales were successful if they were at all.

[00:20:32] Speaker 02:
There's also no evidence about what the market share and what that actually meant with respect to other sales or other methods of connecting carpet tiles

[00:20:41] Speaker 02:
And as you well know, no one is actually buying connectors.

[00:20:43] Speaker 02:
They're buying carpet tiles.

[00:20:44] Speaker 02:
That's what drives sales.

[00:20:46] Speaker 02:
And the connectors go along with it.

[00:20:49] Speaker 02:
And the last evidence of secondary considerations is copying.

[00:20:53] Speaker 02:
The district court found that there was a preliminary injunction filed against Tandis.

[00:20:58] Speaker 02:
And the district court found that there was a substantial question with respect to infringement, with respect to the sufficiently stiff limitation.

[00:21:05] Speaker 02:
Also, Tandis' competing product

[00:21:09] Speaker 02:
They touted it as a superior product that's used for high moisture applications.

[00:21:13] Speaker 02:
It's a different size.

[00:21:14] Speaker 02:
It's a different color.

[00:21:15] Speaker 02:
It's different.

[00:21:16] Speaker 02:
And there's no evidence in the record that there was actual copying done.

[00:21:20] Speaker 02:
So I have some time left.

[00:21:21] Speaker 02:
I'm happy to answer any questions.

[00:21:24] Speaker 03:
OK, thank you very much.

[00:21:25] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:21:33] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, I try to be concise.

[00:21:36] Speaker 00:
Let me jump around a little bit.

[00:21:37] Speaker 00:
Starting with Kinoshita.

[00:21:39] Speaker 00:
We did cross-examine Tandis' carpet tile installation expert, and he admitted at deposition that Keneshita does not disclose core requirements, core requirements for an adhesive tape that would work to prevent lateral gapping between carpet tiles.

[00:21:55] Speaker 00:
And Keneshita says absolutely nothing about the characteristics of its single-sided tape, except that carpet tiles taped together with it won't rise up and peel off under a vacuum.

[00:22:04] Speaker 00:
The suggestion is that given Keneshita

[00:22:07] Speaker 00:
And Passione, which I hope to turn to in a moment, it would have been simple for a person of ordinary skill just to go and say, I need an adhesive tape that'll work.

[00:22:15] Speaker 00:
But history proves this was not so.

[00:22:18] Speaker 00:
It didn't happen.

[00:22:19] Speaker 00:
Been a long time since Kina Shida.

[00:22:21] Speaker 00:
No one tried it.

[00:22:22] Speaker 00:
Even the board's decision combines two different arts, carpet tile installation and adhesive tape, to support its obviousness analysis.

[00:22:32] Speaker 00:
I'd like to get back to Passione, because you mentioned Passione earlier, Your Honor.

[00:22:37] Speaker 00:
and appeared to understand that it taught adhesive, Passione does not teach adhesive bearing sheets.

[00:22:45] Speaker 00:
Passione has this anchor sheet system, a continuous underlying rigid anchor sheet with decorative fabric covering fastened to the top with hook and loop attachment.

[00:22:54] Speaker 00:
It makes three passing references to substituting adhesive for the hook and loop.

[00:22:59] Speaker 00:
Two of those references doesn't say where to put the adhesive.

[00:23:01] Speaker 00:
The third reference, it says put the adhesive on the underside of the carpet.

[00:23:06] Speaker 00:
It doesn't provide any of the additional information that the experts, including Tandis' Dr. Tippett, say would be necessary to convert a hook-and-loop system to an adhesive system, given that they are such very different structures.

[00:23:20] Speaker 04:
Moreover... Well, it would be entailed that it strikes me as a matter of just common sense that it wouldn't be all that difficult to substitute glue for Velcro.

[00:23:31] Speaker 00:
The experts say it's not so, and I would refer Your Honor to A3626-27, A4009.

[00:23:36] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry, give me that number again, please.

[00:23:41] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry.

[00:23:41] Speaker 00:
A3626-27.

[00:23:44] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:23:44] Speaker 00:
A4009, A4295.

[00:23:49] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:23:50] Speaker 00:
And A4124.

[00:23:51] Speaker 04:
All right, and these are your experts' declarations and testimony, is that what they say?

[00:23:57] Speaker 00:
It's our experts and TANDA's expert.

[00:23:59] Speaker 04:
And the gist of it is that

[00:24:01] Speaker 04:
If you have Velcro, it's just really difficult to go from that to an adhesive system.

[00:24:11] Speaker 00:
Certainly that more information is required than saying simply substitute adhesive.

[00:24:15] Speaker 00:
That additional structural modifications would be necessary to make the attachment system work.

[00:24:21] Speaker 04:
I'm hard pressed to imagine what

[00:24:23] Speaker 04:
they would be.

[00:24:24] Speaker 04:
Can you give me a little bit of an idea as to what would be required?

[00:24:27] Speaker 00:
A hook and loop is a two-sided system, right?

[00:24:31] Speaker 00:
And you've got a mechanical attachment of the hooks and loops.

[00:24:34] Speaker 00:
The adhesive, particularly the adhesive of the invention, it's on one side of the connector.

[00:24:41] Speaker 00:
It needs to be releasable, but still necessary to have sufficient sheer strength to resist lateral movement.

[00:24:47] Speaker 00:
It's just an entirely different kind of system.

[00:24:52] Speaker 00:
To go back to Passione, Passione is not concerned with using an adhesive-bearing film to prevent relative lateral movement of those fabric pieces that are fastened to the top.

[00:25:02] Speaker 00:
It's concerned with providing this whole structure and assemblage that's a continuous anchor sheet, a fabric covering, and it's focused on the stability and mass of that entire structure, preventing it from sliding over the floor.

[00:25:16] Speaker 00:
And I see that I'm out of time.

[00:25:17] Speaker 03:
You can have a concluding thought.

[00:25:23] Speaker 00:
I would urge your honors to look at the secondary considerations of non-obviousness.

[00:25:29] Speaker 00:
The board gave them passing treatment.

[00:25:31] Speaker 00:
They are of significant weight.

[00:25:33] Speaker 00:
They are the real world evidence that shows how the marketplace actually received this invention, and they prove its value.

[00:25:41] Speaker 00:
OK.

[00:25:41] Speaker 03:
Thank you very much.