[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
Two patent cases from district courts, a trademark case from the PTO, employee case, a veteran's case.

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The trademark case from the veteran's case are being submitted only in the briefs and will not be argued.

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The first case is Synopsis versus Mentor 2015-1599, Mr. Phillips.

[00:00:31] Speaker 01:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:00:35] Speaker 01:
I think that the path to the correct outcome of this case was pretty well paved last month by this Court in the Enfish opinion.

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What the Court said there seems to me to apply in some ways with a vengeance here.

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Everyone sides Enfish.

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Well, I suspect my colleague won't.

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But I certainly am going to cite Enfish.

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We are not facing... Not too much attention to DDR holdings, though.

[00:01:00] Speaker 01:
Well... That's okay.

[00:01:02] Speaker 04:
I want to hear what you have to say about Enfish.

[00:01:04] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

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We are not faced with a situation where general purpose computer components are added post-OC to a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation.

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Rather, the claims are directed to a specific implementation of a solution to a problem in the software arts.

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I know the court didn't have this case in mind when it wrote those words, but I don't know that you could describe exactly what we have in this case more clearly than the court did in the Enfish opinion.

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I guess what I'm wondering about in terms of your case here compared to Enfish is if Enfish was a claim directed solely to the self-referential data table itself.

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Right.

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And at least as that claim was construed by the courts, that was

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a memory, a computer memory with this table in there for organizing all of that data in the memory so that it could all be organized in a single table rather than having to use a whole string of tables for each individual data type.

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So I guess the concern I have about trying to make a connection to Enfish here is that this claim, as I understand it, there's nothing, it's not limited to something physical.

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Right.

[00:02:21] Speaker 01:
No, it's a process claim.

[00:02:22] Speaker 04:
It's a process claim, but it's a process claim that is broad enough on its face to be performed by an individual with pen and paper, maybe even mentally.

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And so that's the disconnect.

[00:02:37] Speaker 01:
Right.

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But Judge Chin, I think the problem we have, if you take that to its logical consequence here, what you're basically saying is that software patents are ineligible for

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No, I think that what Judge Chen said is that this claim can be performed mentally or by pen and paper.

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Please tell me whether or not the district court was correct in concluding that this claim is not limited to a computer.

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Because for you to make a statement in response to Judge Chen about software is not listening to his question.

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His question, I think, pretty clearly indicated that this may not

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be construed as a software claim, and in fact maybe wasn't construed as a software claim by the district court below, since it obviously, according to the district court, is capable of being done by pen and paper, and the inventors seem to have admitted as much.

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So tell me why I should even view this as a software claim.

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Where are the computer limitations in this claim?

[00:03:31] Speaker 01:
Well, the claim itself is, and the district court said, it's directed primarily to a computer.

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And indeed, the testimony is undisputed.

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that no human would follow the process that's outlined in this patent in order to achieve the ultimate objective of coming up with a chip design.

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Nobody would follow this.

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You only follow this because you have a computer that you're trying to create influences.

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But you're talking about the patent.

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You're not talking about the claim.

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This claim.

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Section one.

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Right.

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This claim.

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Claim number one.

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Claim number one.

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the district court concluded could be done with pen and paper by a human being and was not limited to any application on any computer.

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In its simplest form, that's true.

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No, in the form as written.

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I mean, it's not in the simplest form.

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It's not like there's a simple form of this claim and a complex form.

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There's only one form of this claim.

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It's the language the inventor chose to claim protection for.

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Right.

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But in order to create what is the true novelty in this particular claim, which is the assignment conditions,

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I mean, there are 200 pages of code attached to the... I don't disagree with you.

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The specification contains in it a lot more detail and many references to computer code.

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But the problem is the claim doesn't.

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And this district court was not taxed with construing the patent or deciding whether there is any invention disclosed in the patent that would have been eligible for patentability.

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He's taxed with looking at the claim that you actually filed for protection for and deciding whether that works with both of your requirements.

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But I think you have to read the claim in the context of the specification.

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And I'm not trying to limit the claim based on the specification.

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I'm reading it as it states, which is a series of steps that are clearly aimed at operating a computer.

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Because no human would follow these steps.

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And it seems to me that when you're talking about steps that can only be used on a computer, the only way to read that is that this is, in fact, a software invention.

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And the fact that you can perform this in its simplest way by pencil and paper is exactly what Judge Bryson on the district court in the TQP case said, no, that's not the answer.

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Sure, you can do these things.

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You know, simply, in that context, an entire industry was created on the basis of this.

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That's true, but, you know, we're looking at one claim as the representative claim here, claim one of the 8-4-1 pattern.

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Right.

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And when I, you know, when I look at those four lines of code, the if-else statements, you know, it just almost slaps me across the face of thinking latch automatically.

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If a condition is met, then you pass the input into becoming the output.

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You know, that's a definition of a latch.

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You know, it's like, I don't know, like when I'm watching TV, a football game, and I see the defense lined up in a certain way, the linebackers and the defensive backs and the safeties are in a certain position, I think that's a cover to defense.

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But Judge Chen, it seems to me what you're talking about there may go to the question of whether it's obvious, may go to the question of whether it's anticipated.

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And I don't think it goes to the question of whether it's patentable.

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Because nobody had been able, you know, there was no prior art by which you could identify, where a computer could identify that as a latch prior to the creation of this invention.

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And I understand.

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It feels like a key element of your argument is that we need to understand this claim in the context of some synthesizer tool on a computer for carrying out these steps.

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But right now, as I understand it, this claim was not construed that way.

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you aren't challenging the lack of a construction for that.

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In fact, if we're just left with a claim that broadly covers on its face the performance of these steps either internally in a person's mind or by an individual with pen and paper, then is that the end of the case for you?

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Or do you have a backup argument for why even if this claim could be

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categorized as a mental process.

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Nevertheless, this is a patent-eligible mental process.

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Right, and the reason it is is because no human would perform this mental process.

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Maybe they could perform it, but no human would perform it.

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The testimony on that is absolutely unquestioned.

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All the testimony says no human would go through these steps.

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These are steps that only make sense if you're trying to get a computer

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to effectively simulate the mental process that you're trying to develop.

[00:08:03] Speaker 04:
There's also testimony that a human did perform these steps by pen and paper, right?

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Right.

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But the reason why, if you're going to write a patent, and it's going to deal with a mental process because the computer can't think, right?

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So you have to set out exactly how to make the computer think.

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You're going to have to go through that mental process.

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And as I said before, the genius in this

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was the assignment conditions.

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That's the mechanism by which you can convert this human to computer language that the people who want new chips and want new manufacturing to create can then convert into a system that allows you to manufacture it.

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Hypothetically, you could imagine a situation where inventors invented something really important, a very useful technical advance.

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But then at the same time, when you look at the claims, the claims are

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to such a stripped down elemental level that the claim itself doesn't exactly capture that.

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I mean, hypothetically, I think you can understand that possibility.

[00:09:07] Speaker 01:
I can understand that as a hypothetical.

[00:09:09] Speaker 04:
Can we go to the assignment conditions, though?

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Can you explain to me?

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I mean, I tried to understand these assignment conditions.

[00:09:17] Speaker 04:
It didn't look like your briefing devoted much time to grinding us down to help us understand what these assignment conditions truly are.

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Can you describe whether Gregory was the first one to really conceive of thinking about these functional logic descriptions?

[00:09:38] Speaker 01:
The answer to that is no.

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Maybe my colleague will have something else he wants to say about that.

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But I have to say that if you look at the prior art, there is nothing like this use of these conditions.

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anywhere in the prior art.

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So yes, the undertaking, and he was very clear in his testimony about this, he said, look, I've got to find a way to take what people try to do by human pen and pencil and explain it to a computer so that the computer can do these massive inputs and then convert them into equally massive outputs that will allow chips to become what they are today.

[00:10:17] Speaker 04:
and he went through that process very specifically in order to allow the computer going back to claim one though again this is a pretty simple logic device a latch and when I look at the assignment conditions here and I'm trying to think what is nifty about characterizing the functional description in this alternative but equivalent functional description I'm trying to understand what was what was the

[00:10:46] Speaker 04:
the twist here that made this such an interesting way of describing the functions?

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Because prior to this, there was no way for the computer to figure out how to create a latch or to create a flip-flop or to create an impedance.

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There was just simply no way.

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And those are fundamental elements in chip design.

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And so until you could actually get the computer to look at those and, you know,

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Claim one is the latch, but obviously the other two are embedded in the other claims as well.

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But until you could get the computer to actually implement that through the logical sequencing of a computer, then you could not do what this invention has done.

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And that's why literally an entire industry, billions of dollar industry, has been created as a consequence of this particular undertaking.

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And it seems to me that the district court's fundamental error here is sort of focusing on this as a, quote, mental process, rather than going back to the kind of core notion of what Alice is all about.

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Because what Alice is all about is taking ordinary human endeavors, and nobody knows Alice better than I do, I suppose I can say with some confidence, and then just adding a computer to it.

[00:12:05] Speaker 01:
And this is, to my mind at least, the polar opposite of that.

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This is recognizing that in a very complicated technological field, you need to devise a method of allowing that computer to process information in a unique way that no one else had ever seen and to do it in a way that allows you with an outcome that no one else could have ever anticipated.

[00:12:26] Speaker 04:
I haven't looked at all the other patent claims that your client has.

[00:12:31] Speaker 04:
Do some of those claims

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Recite this invention in the context of a computer loaded with this software tool carrying out and executing all these different... Not as much as the specification it seems to me speaks in those terms.

[00:12:48] Speaker 01:
Again, the district court recognized herself specifically that this is designed for a computer.

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And the testimony, as I say, is undisputed that no human would follow this particular process.

[00:13:01] Speaker 02:
We'll save your rebuttal time, Mr. Phillips, and perhaps restore it to three minutes.

[00:13:08] Speaker 02:
Mr. Vandenberg?

[00:13:09] Speaker 03:
May it please the court?

[00:13:10] Speaker 03:
I'd like to address sort of the claim construction issue and then explain assignment condition and then speak as to the prior art, whether that was novel or not.

[00:13:19] Speaker 03:
On the issue of whether the claims require a computer, we submit synopsis, waive that point.

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We submitted 29 pages of expert declaration explaining that every claimed method could be performed in one's head or pencil and paper without using any machine.

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And that is at joint appendix 2983 to 3012.

[00:13:39] Speaker 02:
Are you saying could be and was?

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Could be, was by these named inventors.

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We also conceded that as in Benson,

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In the commercial world, if one is making an actual integrated circuit, you're not going to do that on the whiteboard.

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You're going to use computer software.

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In fact, both of our clients depend on that for their livelihoods.

[00:14:02] Speaker 04:
So is it possible that one of ordinary skill in the art reading these claims would look at these steps and think, this would only be performed in the context of a computer?

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software tool, and it's not, nobody would ever read these claim steps and think that a human being would be doing it individually with pen and paper.

[00:14:25] Speaker 03:
Well, no, Your Honor, in the sense of a claim construction, to the extent the question asks whether these claims are properly construed as required in computer and software, they did not, Synopsys did not seek that.

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In the Markman, they did not seek to read in any computer element

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any software.

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The claim construction is at 2375.

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Synopsis took the position that the preamble is not limiting.

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And for every claim term that was construed, they did not, and nor did we, read in anything tangible, did not seek anything tangible.

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Again, in our summary judgment, we identified one fact as being material, namely that the person of skill could do this mentally.

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That was undisputed.

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In fact, when the judge asked,

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counsel for synopsis at the summary judgment hearing.

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What about mentor's point that these claims do not require a computer?

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She responded that they do not require a computer.

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J.A.

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2080, they agreed no computer.

[00:15:25] Speaker 04:
In their brief, in the summary judgment... Just curious, you know, this is a 65-column patent.

[00:15:31] Speaker 04:
When you read it, it feels like there's something technical going on.

[00:15:36] Speaker 04:
Is it your view that what has happened here is that

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There is perhaps something patent eligible going on with what Mr. Gregory invented, but it just didn't come through and get fully realized in the claims?

[00:15:52] Speaker 03:
I think not.

[00:15:53] Speaker 04:
I think we... Another way of putting it is, if these claims are no good, how could these claims be redrafted so that they would be passing 101?

[00:16:03] Speaker 03:
It is conceivable that had one written the specification differently and the claims differently, one could have gotten to the point of an Enfish type claim or DDR holding claim where you indeed had a better computer, where you had an invention that made the computer operate in a better way.

[00:16:22] Speaker 03:
This, however, is like Fluke or Benson.

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But as a general matter, synthesis tools for translating HDL into logic circuit components

[00:16:34] Speaker 04:
I mean, that sounds like something technical, and that sounds like something that, assuming software is patent-eligible, that this would be a type of software that you would likely find patent-eligible material in there.

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I would submit if and only if there was persuasion, as in Enfish, that it improved the computer's operation.

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It made the computer process better, or as in Enfish, Enfish claimed

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configuring, that was in the claim, computer memory.

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So it was a better computer memory.

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One way of distinguishing is when you ran the process in Enfish, you ran that process and you put the self-referential table and you stood back, you now had a better computer.

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For the next application you ran, whether it was browsing or anything else, you had a better computer.

[00:17:21] Speaker 03:
You now had a computer that could store faster, it could be more efficient.

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When you run this method, it is no different than running calculating E equals MC squared.

[00:17:29] Speaker 04:
It could be... I guess, but what if

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One could say that the synthesis tool, if it's claimed in an instantiated way that's carrying out these steps, what you have now is a way of drafting HDL that doesn't require you to expressly describe the logic devices.

[00:17:53] Speaker 04:
You can just stick with the signals.

[00:17:56] Speaker 03:
Well, two answers to that.

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One is, with respect as to the point that it relates to sort of technology, that was true in Benson, too.

[00:18:05] Speaker 03:
The whole point in Benson was you were converting from binary decimal to binary.

[00:18:09] Speaker 03:
The court said that the primary purpose of this is for use in computers.

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However, the court said one could do it by hand, and therefore it was a mental process.

[00:18:20] Speaker 03:
It's very similar.

[00:18:21] Speaker 04:
But if you take Benson to its

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potential logical extension or one interpretation of Benson, then what you're really saying is almost any kind of coding is a mental process and therefore any kind of software is a mental process and therefore all software loaded on a computer is patent-ineligible.

[00:18:41] Speaker 04:
I mean there has to be a breaking point somewhere, even in your position, right?

[00:18:47] Speaker 03:
Enfish and DDR Holdings are perfectly consistent with Benson.

[00:18:51] Speaker 03:
The distinction is that in Benson,

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There was value in a thought process.

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That value existed whether or not it was run on the computer.

[00:18:59] Speaker 03:
Yes, it was well suited and intended for running on a computer, but running that process in the computer didn't improve the computer.

[00:19:06] Speaker 03:
In ENFISH, running that process, configuring a memory to be a self-referential table, that's a better computer.

[00:19:12] Speaker 03:
DDR was a better web server.

[00:19:14] Speaker 03:
Those are the distinctions.

[00:19:16] Speaker 03:
Fluke clearly was a technical environment.

[00:19:19] Speaker 03:
We're talking about catalytic conversion, updating alarm limits.

[00:19:22] Speaker 03:
the court said that's intended to be run on a computer of course you're not going to have people by hand because the exploded the conversion process could blow up while you're doing your math you seem to be thinking that only software that improves the quality of the operation of a computer

[00:19:39] Speaker 00:
is patent eligible.

[00:19:41] Speaker 00:
Is that right?

[00:19:42] Speaker 00:
Is that where you really think the limit is?

[00:19:44] Speaker 00:
Is that narrowly defined?

[00:19:46] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor.

[00:19:46] Speaker 03:
There are other instances, such as in the Abili case, which Inrei Bilski on Bonk adopted, was a case where you had

[00:19:55] Speaker 03:
Essentially the machine or transformation test was sort of met in a virtual way where you had virtual, it was a CAT scan type of thing and you displayed, there are all sorts of instances.

[00:20:08] Speaker 00:
So that's what I'm wondering.

[00:20:09] Speaker 00:
Are you limiting it to a computer or say a CAT scan or I don't know, basically any kind of machine, if the operation of that machine is significantly improved by virtue of a software program,

[00:20:23] Speaker 00:
Would that fall into the Enfish and DDR category, according to you?

[00:20:28] Speaker 00:
Or is it literally only improving the operation of a computer?

[00:20:31] Speaker 00:
In particular, improving the operation of any other machine would be irrelevant?

[00:20:35] Speaker 03:
No, it would be the former, such as deer was an improvement of another machine.

[00:20:39] Speaker 03:
And it really goes to whether there's a functional relationship as claimed.

[00:20:44] Speaker 03:
The name of the game is the claim, so one has to look at the claim.

[00:20:47] Speaker 03:
This is a claim that is purely intangible, and again, that was undisputed.

[00:20:51] Speaker 03:
And I'm not aware of any Supreme Court or this court's decision.

[00:20:55] Speaker 04:
I guess what I was trying to explore with you is something that was truly a computerized version of this that perhaps would then potentially change the character of the claim so that one could see and therefore argue that it necessarily is some kind of

[00:21:12] Speaker 04:
improvement to computer technology.

[00:21:14] Speaker 04:
I mean, we've got another case coming after yours that deals with emulators and debuggers and everything else with respect to making sure we have these IC designs in working order in light of the HDL.

[00:21:29] Speaker 04:
And I mean, I don't know where your position stops.

[00:21:34] Speaker 04:
Are you saying that all of those are likewise patent-ineligible inventions?

[00:21:40] Speaker 03:
uh... no your honor all our clients patterns are pat yeah of course they are so but it but it but the distinction again is to focus you there's two points about this one is the claim and it was way and it was undisputed that this can be done mental process again we put in the expert declaration thought process nothing on point on that and get to the second part is even in the blue brief synopsis quoted with approval

[00:22:05] Speaker 03:
the district courts reference to this claim as being directed to a thought process and that's blue brief page thirty nine last line of the footnote.

[00:22:15] Speaker 03:
So that was unchallenged here.

[00:22:17] Speaker 03:
The other aspect is

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So the claim, there's no, it's purely intangible, like DigiTac, like the CC.

[00:22:23] Speaker 00:
But let me just try to be as direct as I can to try and get an answer to the question I think that Judge Chen has asked you repeatedly, was if this claim was not drafted in a way that included mental performance or pen and paper performance, but was clearly and unequivocally limited to performing these steps on a computer, would it be patent eligible?

[00:22:48] Speaker 03:
I don't know.

[00:22:50] Speaker 03:
It would depend if there was record evidence to show that somehow that either created an improved data structure, it had some physical improvement.

[00:23:00] Speaker 03:
If they claimed downstream steps that led to place and route of circuits, et cetera, it would all depend.

[00:23:05] Speaker 03:
But it is conceivable.

[00:23:06] Speaker 00:
Certainly, we have a lot of... No, this claim with computer limitations in it, not additional downstream steps, not moving away from anything other than the steps of this claim,

[00:23:18] Speaker 00:
But suppose at the end of every single step, it said performed on a computer.

[00:23:22] Speaker 03:
No, that would not be patent eligible.

[00:23:24] Speaker 03:
And if I may respond to that and also to Judge Chen's earlier question about assignment condition by inviting the court to the red brief, page 9, which has the example in so I can explain what this thought process is and why it has nothing.

[00:23:39] Speaker 03:
It doesn't improve a computer.

[00:23:40] Speaker 03:
It's more like Benson.

[00:23:43] Speaker 03:
The thought, the example, the patent's only example for claim one is a red brief page 9, table 8, table 9, and then the schematic.

[00:23:51] Speaker 03:
Table 8 is the Boolean logic equation that Judge Chen referenced.

[00:23:56] Speaker 03:
And basically, it deals with three variables, Q, D, and CONT.

[00:24:02] Speaker 03:
And all it says is that

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Q is given the value of D if and only if COND is true.

[00:24:09] Speaker 03:
So Q is given the value of D if the condition COND is true.

[00:24:14] Speaker 03:
The table 9 is simply a different way of thinking about that, and that's what assignment conditions are.

[00:24:18] Speaker 03:
It's a different way of thinking of that equation, and specifically what the assignment conditions are is you look at the equation, you say, okay, when is Q given a new value?

[00:24:28] Speaker 03:
And when it's given a new value, what is that new value?

[00:24:31] Speaker 03:
The when is the first thing we see in Table 9 next to the variable Q. It's called AL.

[00:24:37] Speaker 03:
It's talking about when is a new value loaded.

[00:24:39] Speaker 03:
It's also loading the same as assigning or setting a value.

[00:24:43] Speaker 03:
It is loaded when con is true.

[00:24:45] Speaker 03:
You move to the right, and it says con and D. D is the new value that's loaded.

[00:24:50] Speaker 03:
So all they did here,

[00:24:52] Speaker 03:
And on this record, there's no evidence that someone else previously had thought of logic equations using assignment conditions in response to your question.

[00:25:00] Speaker 03:
So we did not argue this was an old idea.

[00:25:03] Speaker 03:
But all this is is to think about it.

[00:25:06] Speaker 03:
Look at the equation.

[00:25:06] Speaker 03:
Say, OK, when and what value?

[00:25:08] Speaker 03:
When is Q given a new value, and what is that new value?

[00:25:11] Speaker 03:
And then the method, the thought process, applies a rule.

[00:25:15] Speaker 03:
It tells people, people who don't recognize a latch when they see it, that, oh,

[00:25:21] Speaker 03:
If those two values are non-constant or variable, as is true here, because cond is a variable and d is a variable, then, you know, sir, what you have is a latch and we want you to draw it this way.

[00:25:34] Speaker 04:
Draw the latch, it has two inputs, cond and d, and your output is q. That has val... So is it my understanding that, I guess, the computer would not be able to read what's in table eight and understand that

[00:25:50] Speaker 04:
and infer that that represents a latch, but it looks at what's in table nine and somehow the computer, table nine is drafted in a way that understands how a computer thinks and so therefore what's in table nine is something that a computer can understand and then now knows to automatically generate a listing of a latch in the netlist.

[00:26:16] Speaker 03:
I would say that's correct with missing one element.

[00:26:19] Speaker 03:
The computer understands it only because it's programmed with the rule.

[00:26:22] Speaker 03:
It will have a set of rules and it will say if your assignment conditions are both non-constant, have a latch.

[00:26:28] Speaker 03:
If this other thing is constant,

[00:26:30] Speaker 03:
you output a wire.

[00:26:32] Speaker 03:
So you simply tell the computer what to do.

[00:26:35] Speaker 03:
Now computers could have gotten to the same place before.

[00:26:38] Speaker 03:
You simply could have put in the computer if you see table eight output a schematic of a latch.

[00:26:46] Speaker 03:
So it's really no different.

[00:26:47] Speaker 03:
But we'll assume it's improved because having a set of rules rather than taking up a lot of space with all these different formulas is advantageous.

[00:26:56] Speaker 03:
Very similar to Benson.

[00:26:57] Speaker 03:
In Benson, people knew how

[00:26:59] Speaker 03:
to convert from binary decimal to binary.

[00:27:01] Speaker 03:
They looked it up in a table.

[00:27:04] Speaker 03:
And the computer could have been loaded with that table.

[00:27:06] Speaker 03:
So the computer could have done it in a quick way, but it would have taken up more space.

[00:27:10] Speaker 03:
So in Benson, they took a one-step manual process, and they turned it into seven steps, well suited for a computer.

[00:27:16] Speaker 03:
A computer knows how to move zeros and ones in a shift register.

[00:27:20] Speaker 03:
So now the computer can emulate what humans could already do.

[00:27:23] Speaker 03:
That's exactly this case.

[00:27:25] Speaker 03:
A computer could now emulate what

[00:27:28] Speaker 03:
experts or skilled artisans could already do.

[00:27:33] Speaker 03:
Basically, again, why Fluke, Benson, in this case, are on one side, whereas Enfish and DDR are on the other side, and I'm not saying this applies to every case in the future, is simply that on the one side, there's an improvement to the way computers work, which is a subset of deer, improvement to the way a machine works.

[00:27:57] Speaker 03:
On the other side, it's simply a thought process, which is conceded and admitted.

[00:28:01] Speaker 03:
In this case, a thought process that is well-suited for use on a computer.

[00:28:06] Speaker 03:
That was Benson.

[00:28:07] Speaker 03:
That was CyberSource.

[00:28:09] Speaker 03:
That was Fluke.

[00:28:12] Speaker 03:
And the Supreme Court in this court, 10 times now, as we've counted, has said that mental processes are patented and ineligible.

[00:28:20] Speaker 03:
Mayo quoted Benson saying that.

[00:28:22] Speaker 03:
CyberSource, SmartGene.

[00:28:25] Speaker 03:
et cetera, cyber phone, et cetera.

[00:28:27] Speaker 03:
So given that they conceded below in the trial court that this was entirely a mental process.

[00:28:37] Speaker 03:
There's no tangible element.

[00:28:38] Speaker 03:
And also, they did not appeal the finding that the machine or transformation test was failed here.

[00:28:43] Speaker 03:
They did not appeal that.

[00:28:44] Speaker 03:
Given those concessions, we ask the court to affirm the judgment.

[00:28:47] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Mr. Vandenberg.

[00:28:49] Speaker 02:
Mr. Phillips has three minutes.

[00:28:52] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:28:53] Speaker 01:
I appreciate it.

[00:28:55] Speaker 01:
First of all, it seems to me that the notion that this could be done by hand doesn't tell you anything about the nature of this particular invention.

[00:29:04] Speaker 01:
Judge Chen, I think you actually nailed it right on the head when you said the computer can't read table 8, the computer can read table 9, and it is the conversion into that table 9 that is the invention that was the basis for this.

[00:29:18] Speaker 01:
It works on a computer.

[00:29:20] Speaker 01:
It only works on a computer.

[00:29:21] Speaker 01:
No human would go through that operation.

[00:29:25] Speaker 01:
And my friend did concede there was no prior ability to do this.

[00:29:31] Speaker 01:
There is no prior art in this regard.

[00:29:33] Speaker 01:
And it seems to me what he said about Benson is exactly the distinction that the court has to draw here.

[00:29:38] Speaker 01:
In Benson, everybody knew how to convert from binary to other numbers, right?

[00:29:43] Speaker 01:
Everybody knew how to do that.

[00:29:44] Speaker 01:
And then you just add a computer in order to make it happen faster.

[00:29:47] Speaker 01:
That was not the purpose of this exercise.

[00:29:50] Speaker 01:
The purpose of this exercise

[00:29:52] Speaker 01:
In the long run, it clearly will make the computers work better, just as it does every other.

[00:29:56] Speaker 01:
But Enfish and Alice both say that subject matter eligibility is if it improves the computer or if it improves a field of technology.

[00:30:07] Speaker 01:
And the field of technology here is electronic design automation, or synthesis as you quite rightly identify it.

[00:30:14] Speaker 01:
That's the technology.

[00:30:15] Speaker 01:
And this is an extraordinary advance on that technology.

[00:30:19] Speaker 01:
And it falls squarely into what the court

[00:30:21] Speaker 01:
said in Alice, and I think what Enfish said, this kind of software has to be protected under these circumstances.

[00:30:27] Speaker 01:
And if you're going to go back to core principles and just look at what is it that Section 101 is designed to prevent?

[00:30:35] Speaker 01:
It's designed to prevent preemption of broad concepts.

[00:30:38] Speaker 01:
And whatever else you could say about this, this is a very specific, precise way of dealing with a problem on a computer in a technology that will have

[00:30:48] Speaker 01:
virtually zero preemptive effect, and none beyond the preemptive effect you would otherwise get in any case where you get a patent, because the monopoly obviously allows that much preemption.

[00:30:58] Speaker 01:
That's all we're asking for in this case.

[00:31:00] Speaker 01:
And for that reason, the judgment should be reversed.

[00:31:03] Speaker 01:
So no further questions, Your Honor.

[00:31:04] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Mr. Phillips.

[00:31:05] Speaker 02:
We appreciate the excellent arguments on both sides.

[00:31:08] Speaker 02:
We'll take the case under advisement.