[00:00:44] Speaker 01: Our third case this morning is number 16-1875, Great Batch Limited versus AVX Corporation, Mr. Neifeld. [00:00:53] Speaker 04: May it please the Court, Your Honor, and Rick Neifeld, representing Great Batch. [00:00:58] Speaker 01: The board concluded that Hazard discloses the place of... Let me ask you a question so that I can figure out where we are. [00:01:07] Speaker 01: Let's suppose that hypothetically, and I know we're going to hear argument about this, [00:01:13] Speaker 01: that the board interpreted the hazard reference correctly. [00:01:18] Speaker 01: And I know you argue that it didn't. [00:01:21] Speaker 01: What other issues do we have to decide in this case? [00:01:24] Speaker 01: None, Your Honor. [00:01:25] Speaker 01: That's it. [00:01:26] Speaker 01: OK. [00:01:26] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:01:27] Speaker 04: Go ahead. [00:01:28] Speaker 04: So as you know, the board interpreted the hazard reference. [00:01:31] Speaker 04: And it's finding that hazard discloses replacing the external ground connection with an internally grounded connection. [00:01:42] Speaker 02: Replacing or just having. [00:01:45] Speaker 02: Excuse me? [00:01:46] Speaker 02: Replacing or having. [00:01:49] Speaker 04: Existing. [00:01:49] Speaker 04: Mr. Godagney testified at 1039 in the appendix, his declaration. [00:01:55] Speaker 04: Ground lead could be terminated at the pen. [00:01:59] Speaker 04: That was his conclusion from interpreting also to mean instead of. [00:02:05] Speaker 04: Now it's clear on 1039, he used the words relied upon the phrase that ground can also be [00:02:13] Speaker 04: that phrase, the second sentence in Hazard. [00:02:17] Speaker 04: That's the phrase he relied upon for the conclusion that Hazard disclosed that the ground can be terminated at the pen. [00:02:23] Speaker 04: You look at the context and words there, you'll see he refers to the first sentence, the normally terminated edge, draws the contrast with the word however, holds the terms in the first clause in the second sentence, the ground can also be brought to the pen, and then makes the conclusion from that that Hazard teaches [00:02:44] Speaker 04: an alternative. [00:02:47] Speaker 04: That was the focus of the proceeding below, what that phrase and hazard meant. [00:02:53] Speaker 04: And Mr. Gavanni's direct testimony points that out. [00:03:00] Speaker 04: In cross-examination at the appendix pages 25, 95, 96, he admitted that the dictionary definitions for instead are not also, and the dictionary definitions for also are not instead. [00:03:13] Speaker 04: In other words, the words don't have the same meaning. [00:03:17] Speaker 04: AVX put in its reply supported by Mr. Primack's declaration. [00:03:23] Speaker 04: And Mr. Primack also said, quote, dictionary definitions could indicate that also could indicate an alternative. [00:03:34] Speaker 04: Then he said, various dictionary definitions indicate that also means taking the place of. [00:03:39] Speaker 04: That's in appendix page 1436. [00:03:44] Speaker 04: Cross-examination, he admitted that was not the case. [00:03:48] Speaker 04: The admissions are multiple with a pair of appendix pages 3888 to 4004. [00:03:53] Speaker 04: He admitted that also does not mean an alternative in the English language. [00:04:04] Speaker 04: That's at 4002 to 4004. [00:04:07] Speaker 04: And that the sole dictionary definition he could have relied upon for the conclusion [00:04:13] Speaker 04: did not indicate that taking the place of in the English language meant was a definition of also. [00:04:20] Speaker 04: It was, in fact, a description of archaic words. [00:04:23] Speaker 03: I'm not sure I understand the whole point of this argument. [00:04:25] Speaker 03: Doesn't hazard show that the ground can go through the pen? [00:04:30] Speaker 03: Yes, it does. [00:04:32] Speaker 03: Is your argument that in order for it to be obvious, it has to show that it only goes through the pen and not through the edge? [00:04:39] Speaker 03: That's a very good point. [00:04:41] Speaker 04: Hazard discloses the conventional structure of a multi-layer structure with capacitors made by pins that go through it. [00:04:50] Speaker 04: The signal line is normally the pin, but hazard teaches what was well-known, that the connection to a pin can be made by running the ground through the edge connection through the grounded plates to the pin. [00:05:03] Speaker 04: That's what bringing the ground to the pin means in hazard. [00:05:07] Speaker 04: Professor Stevenson testified that that was [00:05:09] Speaker 04: well known in the art prior to hazard. [00:05:18] Speaker 04: Judge Hughes, the structural difference is either you bring the grounds to the pin from the outside through a ground connection, all right, that gives you low inductance, or you have the pin, and you have the pin terminated by a line coming from somewhere else. [00:05:34] Speaker 04: Mr. Galvani testifies that's a, this phrase is, [00:05:39] Speaker 03: a grounded terminated at the pin. [00:05:42] Speaker 03: I'm sorry. [00:05:42] Speaker 03: I'm looking at these two sentences. [00:05:45] Speaker 03: And maybe I don't understand the technology. [00:05:49] Speaker 03: But the way these two sentences read to me, it says, a common ground connection is normally terminated along the long edges. [00:05:56] Speaker 03: Yes. [00:05:56] Speaker 03: Right. [00:05:56] Speaker 03: That's what you think you improved over, because you terminate through the pin, right, in your patent. [00:06:05] Speaker 03: Yes, with the ferrule. [00:06:06] Speaker 03: Right. [00:06:07] Speaker 03: But this goes on and says, [00:06:09] Speaker 03: But the ground can also be brought to the pin. [00:06:12] Speaker 03: Yes, it can. [00:06:14] Speaker 03: Well, why doesn't that disclose exactly what you think you improved upon? [00:06:19] Speaker 04: Because when you bring the ground to the pin, first of all, that's an electrical concept. [00:06:23] Speaker 04: It says the ground. [00:06:25] Speaker 04: Ground is a reference potential. [00:06:26] Speaker 01: Is it because the pin doesn't go all the way through? [00:06:30] Speaker 02: You're saying there are two ways to bring the ground to the pin. [00:06:34] Speaker 04: Yes, from the side. [00:06:36] Speaker 02: One is from the side, you just loop it in, right? [00:06:39] Speaker 02: And the other way is to bring it from the outside or some other place. [00:06:43] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:06:43] Speaker 02: Right? [00:06:44] Speaker 04: No, outside to the pin, to the tip of the pin. [00:06:46] Speaker 04: That's a ground that connects to the pin. [00:06:47] Speaker 02: And that's what your patent does. [00:06:49] Speaker 02: What? [00:06:49] Speaker 02: That's what your patent does? [00:06:51] Speaker 04: No. [00:06:52] Speaker 04: No, the patent has the pin connected to a ferrule where the pin exits the feed-through filter. [00:07:00] Speaker 04: That's what the board found. [00:07:01] Speaker 01: That's what a internally grounded... The pin is connected to the bottom metal plate. [00:07:06] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:07:07] Speaker 01: That's the point. [00:07:07] Speaker 02: That's how it grounds. [00:07:09] Speaker 04: Right. [00:07:09] Speaker 04: We clamped a feed-through-filter assembly. [00:07:11] Speaker 04: That's an internally grounded pin. [00:07:14] Speaker 04: That's entirely different than a pin having a ground lead connected to it, because the ground lead goes off to infinity. [00:07:20] Speaker 04: It goes to the light switch in the airplane, the 5-volt power switch. [00:07:26] Speaker 04: So the clamp refers to a... [00:07:29] Speaker 04: CLAIM refers to a feed-through filter assembly. [00:07:32] Speaker 04: The board found that that is what's shown in our figures five and 10, the assembly, that the internal ground is the pin connecting to the ferrule where the ferrule exits the feed-through filter capacitor. [00:07:44] Speaker 04: That's necessary to give you the very low inductance that can make the device work in plantable devices, for example. [00:07:53] Speaker 04: You have a line extending like Mr. Deraille-Jouge, a lead line, [00:07:58] Speaker 04: then that's not an internally grounded feed through filter assembly. [00:08:02] Speaker 04: That pin is not an internal ground. [00:08:04] Speaker 04: It's grounded somewhere else by the periphery edge connection. [00:08:08] Speaker 04: And our patent claims do not include an edge connection. [00:08:20] Speaker 02: So if you look, for example... That hazard is not internally grounded in your view? [00:08:25] Speaker 04: It's absolutely not. [00:08:27] Speaker 04: It's not internally grounded. [00:08:28] Speaker 04: That's a source of the dispute. [00:08:30] Speaker 04: Where the hazard discloses that there is an internal ground to a pin instead of an edge connection. [00:08:38] Speaker 03: But I still don't see grammatically how that's possible when it's setting it up as two alternatives. [00:08:45] Speaker 03: But that's what the second sentence says. [00:08:47] Speaker 03: It says you can bring it to an internal ground, or preferably you go to the edge. [00:08:54] Speaker 04: The second sentence says, [00:08:56] Speaker 04: The ground can also be brought to the pins. [00:08:58] Speaker 04: That's a false premise, Your Honor. [00:09:00] Speaker 04: The false premise is that the ground's antecedent is the connection in sentence one. [00:09:05] Speaker 04: Sentence one says, a common ground connection. [00:09:07] Speaker 03: Well, that's just grammar. [00:09:09] Speaker 03: I mean, it's talking about a common ground connection is normally along the edges. [00:09:13] Speaker 03: The second sentence says, but it can also be brought to the pins, but an edge ground is preferred. [00:09:18] Speaker 04: I'd like you to look at Mr. Gavagni's other drawing to clarify the point. [00:09:25] Speaker 04: Please look. [00:09:26] Speaker 04: at appendix page 2389. [00:09:27] Speaker 04: It's cited in the brief on page 11. [00:09:30] Speaker 01: Which volume is that? [00:09:32] Speaker 04: Volume 2, Robert. [00:09:36] Speaker 04: It's volume 2. [00:09:43] Speaker 04: What page? [00:09:47] Speaker 02: 2389. [00:09:49] Speaker 04: Yes, 2389. [00:09:50] Speaker 04: So what are we looking at? [00:09:56] Speaker 04: Is this Hazard? [00:09:58] Speaker 04: This is the markup of Hazard page 2 by Mr. Gavagny, specifically identifying the elements of figure 2. [00:10:06] Speaker 04: Now you'll see there that it refers to a ground contact in markup element number 1 of figure 4. [00:10:15] Speaker 04: And you'll see that that ground contact is connected by a line to the schematic, the electrical schematic, in element 2. [00:10:25] Speaker 04: which shows the reference potential. [00:10:29] Speaker 04: Ground is not a common ground connection. [00:10:31] Speaker 04: Ground's an electrical property. [00:10:33] Speaker 04: You are equating ground with the connection. [00:10:37] Speaker 04: It's not. [00:10:38] Speaker 04: I have no idea what you're trying to tell me. [00:10:41] Speaker 04: I'm trying to tell you that a common ground connection in phrase one, Hazard, Hazard says a common ground connection is normally terminated at the edge. [00:10:51] Speaker 03: OK. [00:10:52] Speaker 04: Where does this show any of that? [00:10:54] Speaker 04: A common ground connection is shown by the term ground contact in the original hazard figure right next to element one on the right side and identified by Mr. Galvani as that which is the contact to the reference potential by his line on the left side connecting that to the schematic. [00:11:11] Speaker 01: I'll tell you what your problem is. [00:11:12] Speaker 01: You've got conflicting expert testimony about this. [00:11:16] Speaker 01: You've got a finding of fact by the board. [00:11:19] Speaker 01: as to what Hazard discloses, and you've got a problem of showing us that there isn't substantial evidence to show that they were right. [00:11:27] Speaker 01: I mean, that's your problem. [00:11:29] Speaker 04: We're not experts that don't report to be experts in the field. [00:11:34] Speaker 04: I recognize the burden, and I recognize the testimony. [00:11:37] Speaker 04: I understand it's substantial evidence. [00:11:39] Speaker 04: That's why I went directly to the word also. [00:11:42] Speaker 04: The technology is one thing. [00:11:44] Speaker 04: The words are another. [00:11:45] Speaker 04: The term common ground connection [00:11:49] Speaker 04: is a connection. [00:11:52] Speaker 04: It's kind of clear. [00:11:53] Speaker 04: It's a connection. [00:11:53] Speaker 04: I'm pointing out to the figure to tell you it's a connection and show you that. [00:11:57] Speaker 04: That's what Mr. Galvagnini understood it to mean. [00:12:00] Speaker 04: Ground is not a connection. [00:12:01] Speaker 04: Ground is potential. [00:12:04] Speaker 04: The nouns are different. [00:12:06] Speaker 04: The plain reading hazard doesn't suggest, and this is a plain reading issue, that these two terms are equivalent. [00:12:11] Speaker 04: You made that assumption because it's in AVX's brief. [00:12:15] Speaker 04: If you looked at it and said, oh, it's a grounded connection. [00:12:17] Speaker 02: Isn't that saying that there are really two ways to ground? [00:12:21] Speaker 02: One is along the periphery, and one is not along the periphery. [00:12:24] Speaker 04: One is along the periphery, and that's what our invention disclaims. [00:12:27] Speaker 04: And column three of the Brinell patent has a disclaimer. [00:12:31] Speaker 04: It says the number three to four. [00:12:32] Speaker 02: You say that's not what you are. [00:12:33] Speaker 02: That's not what we are. [00:12:34] Speaker 04: I understand that. [00:12:35] Speaker 04: Yeah. [00:12:36] Speaker 04: The other way to ground. [00:12:37] Speaker 02: But they say the other way is that the ground can be brought to the pin. [00:12:41] Speaker 02: Now, your ground is brought to the pin from the substrate. [00:12:45] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:12:45] Speaker 02: So I think what Judge Hughes was saying was, I was reading the fact that the ground can be brought to the pin, meaning that it's not going to be from the edge. [00:12:59] Speaker 02: It can be brought to the pin. [00:13:00] Speaker 02: It isn't exactly saying how, but it can be. [00:13:02] Speaker 02: And in your case, it's being brought from the substrate. [00:13:06] Speaker 02: It might also be brought from the next room over if you chose to run the ground all the way out and not go to the substrate and take it, you know, [00:13:15] Speaker 02: Next door, right? [00:13:17] Speaker 02: But a shield would be through the pin. [00:13:19] Speaker 04: That would be an interpretation of hazard that says that the pin is connected at the tip to a line somewhere else that goes to ground. [00:13:29] Speaker 04: That would be the interpretation, right? [00:13:31] Speaker 02: You're saying ground is saying? [00:13:32] Speaker 02: Hazard isn't saying how the ground can be brought to the pin. [00:13:36] Speaker 04: Is it? [00:13:37] Speaker 04: Hazard does not disclose. [00:13:39] Speaker 02: I'd say it can be. [00:13:41] Speaker 01: Your problem is with the last part of that sentence, but an edge ground is preferred, which sounds as though bringing the ground to the pin is an alternative to an edge ground. [00:13:51] Speaker 01: That's the problem, and that's the way the board interpreted it. [00:13:55] Speaker 04: That's also not the plain meaning. [00:13:57] Speaker 04: If you look at the two sentences we just referred to, the second sentence says edge ground, the first sentence says normally terminated. [00:14:07] Speaker 04: Now, Mr. Houston will admit, because he admitted it before the board, that that refers to the edge termination. [00:14:13] Speaker 04: That's the argument, that edge ground refers to edge termination. [00:14:16] Speaker 04: But it doesn't say edge termination. [00:14:19] Speaker 02: It says edge. [00:14:19] Speaker 02: Well, it's normally terminated along the edge because you want to minimize impedance? [00:14:25] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:14:27] Speaker 02: Right. [00:14:27] Speaker 02: That's why it's normally done that way. [00:14:30] Speaker 02: But if you say I can tolerate some impedance by grounding through the pin, in your case to the substrate, [00:14:37] Speaker 02: will tolerate the enhanced impedance because of reduced cost. [00:14:43] Speaker 04: That's true. [00:14:43] Speaker 04: If you have the ferrule right there slammed up against the feed-through filter, that's how you minimize the impedance. [00:14:49] Speaker 02: I mean, you wouldn't reduce the cost if your ground ran all the way across the town to someplace else, right? [00:14:54] Speaker 04: It's not the cost. [00:14:55] Speaker 04: It's the inductance. [00:14:56] Speaker 04: If you have a line that extends any substantial length from that pin, you don't have an RF ground. [00:15:02] Speaker 04: You've got a line with so much inductance that all the RF signal is going to go through [00:15:07] Speaker 04: the signal lines, because it's stopped from going through the signal lines. [00:15:12] Speaker 02: So your invention is making a trade-off, right? [00:15:15] Speaker 02: Enhanced impedance, recognizably likely to happen, but not so much as to really affect the working of the mechanism. [00:15:24] Speaker 02: And you've got an advantage, which was manufacturing simplicity, cost, something like that? [00:15:31] Speaker 04: No. [00:15:31] Speaker 04: The advantage is that it works, and without that ferrule on the bottom, it doesn't work. [00:15:38] Speaker 02: What would have worked if it had been grounded on the edges? [00:15:41] Speaker 02: What? [00:15:42] Speaker 02: If it had been grounded on the edge? [00:15:43] Speaker 04: An edge ground is actually better. [00:15:46] Speaker 04: Grounding through the edge to the housing, that gives you effectively zero inductance because of the symmetry and structure. [00:15:53] Speaker 04: That's testimony of the record. [00:15:55] Speaker 04: Grounding, taking a pin and contacting a line to the pin gives you a tremendous amount of inductance. [00:16:02] Speaker 04: That won't work for high frequency EMI filtering. [00:16:07] Speaker 04: That's the difference. [00:16:08] Speaker 04: That's not a ground. [00:16:09] Speaker 04: That's a line running to a pin. [00:16:11] Speaker 04: Unless there's an edge connection, unless you have an edge connection, the device doesn't work. [00:16:18] Speaker 04: The exception is if you take a ferrule and you bund it up against a feed-through filter capacitor, and you run the ground lead into that ferrule, effectively running it into the housing. [00:16:29] Speaker 04: The ferrule is part of the housing that surrounds the device. [00:16:32] Speaker 04: That was the invention. [00:16:33] Speaker 04: To be able to do that to get rid of the edge connection, [00:16:35] Speaker 04: The whole idea was to get rid of the edge connection. [00:16:38] Speaker 01: Okay, Mr. Neinfeld, we're out of time. [00:16:40] Speaker 01: We'll give you two minutes for rebuttal. [00:16:42] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:16:50] Speaker 01: Mr. Houston? [00:16:53] Speaker 00: Good morning, Your Honor. [00:16:54] Speaker 00: May it please the Court? [00:16:57] Speaker 00: Just picking up on the discussion that you were just having with counsel, Stevenson is very clear that the ground [00:17:06] Speaker 00: in its devices is the ferrule. [00:17:10] Speaker 00: I would invite the court an hour later to look at figures 14 and 27 of Stevenson. [00:17:14] Speaker 00: 14 is the rectangular design. [00:17:16] Speaker 00: 27 is the circular one. [00:17:18] Speaker 00: In both of those, the ground is being connected. [00:17:23] Speaker 00: It's labeled as G2, and it's being connected to the ferrule 30. [00:17:26] Speaker 00: That's what ground is. [00:17:28] Speaker 00: And what Hazard teaches is the same thing that's in Stevenson that normally [00:17:36] Speaker 00: the ground is made by these edge connections. [00:17:40] Speaker 00: Normally terminated along the log. [00:17:42] Speaker 01: Well, the question is whether it teaches bringing the pin down to the ferrule, right? [00:17:46] Speaker 01: I'm sorry? [00:17:46] Speaker 01: The question is whether it teaches bringing the pin down to the ferrule. [00:17:50] Speaker 00: Right. [00:17:50] Speaker 00: So you're right, Your Honor. [00:17:51] Speaker 00: So hazard teaches that you can bring ground to the pin. [00:17:54] Speaker 00: And Stevenson says ground is the ferrule. [00:17:57] Speaker 00: That is the ground in this case. [00:17:59] Speaker 00: And in fact, you can look at figure 26 [00:18:05] Speaker 00: of Stevenson is one where they've done a cutout of the circular array where you can actually see where a ground pin can go in there in the slot that's marked G1 for the cutout of Figure 26. [00:18:19] Speaker 00: And we have testimony from our experts, Your Honor, that says, yes, that's exactly how you would do it. [00:18:23] Speaker 00: You would bring the ground pin right to the ferrule and connect it. [00:18:27] Speaker 00: That's an easy thing to do. [00:18:28] Speaker 00: I can cite to Apex 1430 as one example. [00:18:32] Speaker 00: of some of the expert testimony that explains how that's readily doable. [00:18:37] Speaker 00: The board also cited in its decision at Apex 26 and 27, crossing over on the page, it cited to testimony from a great batch's own expert, Dr. Stevenson. [00:18:50] Speaker 00: And he was explaining that, yes, if a person of ordinary skill in the art were asked to bring ground to the pin and connect it to the ferrule, could they do that? [00:18:59] Speaker 00: He said, yes, that's something a person in ordinary school in the art knows how to do. [00:19:03] Speaker 00: So really, the only issue in our mind, Your Honor, was do you bring the ground, the feral, to the end? [00:19:09] Speaker 01: Well, that somebody could do it doesn't mean that somebody would be motivated to do it. [00:19:14] Speaker 00: So fair point, Your Honor. [00:19:15] Speaker 00: And so the motivations to combine in this case that were identified by the board, well, identified by us and relied on by the board, were a number of things. [00:19:25] Speaker 00: Our expert first mentioned that if you use pins for your grounds, [00:19:29] Speaker 00: that allows you to have multiple redundant pins, multiple redundant grounds that provides for better grounding and also redundant grounding in case there's a problem with one of the connections. [00:19:41] Speaker 00: Another motivation that he identified was that you could avoid the use of the external solder connections on the outside of the device, that there'd be some benefit to avoiding that. [00:19:52] Speaker 00: And we saw evidence of that in the background, the admitted background section of the patent. [00:19:57] Speaker 00: at column three around line 40, where it says the same thing, that it's known in the art, that the external solder connections are problematic and things you'd like to avoid. [00:20:07] Speaker 00: And so that was another motivation that our expert relied on. [00:20:11] Speaker 00: And by the way, the board cited that motivation at Apex 27. [00:20:16] Speaker 00: I'm sorry, cited the background section of the patent at Apex 27. [00:20:21] Speaker 00: And then finally, Your Honor, we would just argue that under KSR, this is just substituting one known element for another. [00:20:28] Speaker 00: where the function or the performance of it is not unexpected. [00:20:32] Speaker 00: Is the performance worse? [00:20:33] Speaker 00: Yes. [00:20:34] Speaker 00: Hazard tells us it's going to be worse, that you're going to get better RF performance. [00:20:39] Speaker 01: Well, it's worse in some respects, but better in others. [00:20:42] Speaker 00: Right. [00:20:42] Speaker 00: So as far as the filtering performance, hazard tells us that you should expect lower performance. [00:20:49] Speaker 00: But that's the trade-off you make. [00:20:51] Speaker 00: If you want to go with pins and you want to avoid that external solder, that's a trade-off you can make. [00:20:56] Speaker 00: And that's consistent, by the way, with the story that our expert, Dr. Primack, told, which said when he was working at AVX, he was approached by somebody that had done exactly this. [00:21:06] Speaker 00: They had gotten rid of their external connection. [00:21:08] Speaker 00: They'd used a ground pin. [00:21:10] Speaker 00: And they said, hey, Mr. Primack, we want to know how much is the performance of this device going to degrade? [00:21:16] Speaker 00: They came to him to ask him that question. [00:21:18] Speaker 00: They knew that there was going to be performance degradation. [00:21:21] Speaker 00: And they came to him to ask him how much. [00:21:23] Speaker 00: And he gave them an estimate. [00:21:24] Speaker 00: And ultimately told them if they wanted exact numbers, they'll have to go measure it and test it. [00:21:28] Speaker 00: So it's consistent with everything we know in the prior art. [00:21:31] Speaker 00: It's also consistent with Dr. Galvani also having personal recollection of a prior art device that removed the edge ground and used a pin. [00:21:42] Speaker 00: So such devices were known. [00:21:43] Speaker 00: They weren't common at the time. [00:21:45] Speaker 00: They weren't prevalent. [00:21:46] Speaker 00: It wasn't the preferred way. [00:21:48] Speaker 00: But they were known, and Hazard tells us that. [00:21:52] Speaker 00: If I could, one other point I'd like to [00:21:54] Speaker 00: be sure to mention regarding this interpretation of hazard issue that I think was misunderstood in the reply brief, which is our mootness argument. [00:22:02] Speaker 00: I mean, they seem to be arguing that, as best I can understand, that hazard teaches both. [00:22:07] Speaker 00: It teaches the pin and the edge connection together, bringing ground to both pins and the edge. [00:22:13] Speaker 00: We and the board think that's wrong. [00:22:14] Speaker 01: We think hazard teaches it as a... I don't think that's what their argument is. [00:22:16] Speaker 01: I think their argument is that what hazard says is you can connect the pin to the edge ground, but that the pin doesn't [00:22:24] Speaker 01: go all the way through to the ferrule? [00:22:28] Speaker 00: Well, that would be news to me, Your Honor. [00:22:29] Speaker 00: I've never heard that argument anywhere that you could connect the pin to the edge ground. [00:22:33] Speaker 00: Ground in these devices is the ferrule. [00:22:35] Speaker 00: That is the ground. [00:22:36] Speaker 00: So when they talk about using the pins for ground, I've never heard a dispute that that meant connecting the pin to the ferrule. [00:22:44] Speaker 00: And certainly not phrased the way you just put it. [00:22:47] Speaker 00: They can get back up and speak for themselves. [00:22:49] Speaker 00: But our understanding all along, and I think the board's understanding, [00:22:53] Speaker 00: They were preaching that hazard had to be interpreted as including them both together, the pin going to the ground and the edge connection going to ground. [00:23:02] Speaker 00: And even under that interpretation, they don't win. [00:23:05] Speaker 00: I mean, that still is disclosing a ground pin going to ground, which is all the claim requires. [00:23:10] Speaker 00: The claim doesn't exclude the external metalization. [00:23:13] Speaker 00: It just requires the ground pin. [00:23:15] Speaker 00: So we just think to some extent the issue is moot, and we should prevail under either construction. [00:23:21] Speaker 00: Although we feel very strongly that our interpretation of hazard and the Boyd's interpretation of hazard was the correct one. [00:23:28] Speaker 00: Your Honor, I'm going to concede the rest of my time unless there are some issues that were raised in the briefing that you have questions about. [00:23:34] Speaker 01: All right. [00:23:34] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:23:38] Speaker 01: Thank you, Mr. Houston. [00:23:39] Speaker 01: Mr. Neifeld, you have two minutes. [00:23:41] Speaker 04: Your Honor, I'd first like to address the mootness argument. [00:23:46] Speaker 04: It's undisputed that an edge ground is preferred. [00:23:50] Speaker 04: You have an edge ground. [00:23:51] Speaker 04: and you have a pin that's also connected to the terminals, and that goes through the ferrule. [00:23:56] Speaker 04: That's great. [00:23:57] Speaker 04: Why would you connect it to the ferrule if it's already connected to the edge ground? [00:24:02] Speaker 04: Edge ground's the best ground, so there's really no motivation to do that. [00:24:07] Speaker 01: You have an edge ground. [00:24:07] Speaker 01: The whole issue is whether there'd be a motivation to put the pin down to the ferrule, right? [00:24:15] Speaker 01: And the question is whether Hazard discloses that. [00:24:18] Speaker 04: Well, Hazard doesn't talk about the ferrule. [00:24:19] Speaker 04: That's the issue. [00:24:22] Speaker 04: Yeah, to frame it clearly, the issue is whether hazard discloses connecting a pin to a line that's somehow connected to ground instead of an edge connection to ground. [00:24:32] Speaker 04: It says replacing, or their argument is that there's a motivation. [00:24:36] Speaker 01: Well, the pin would have to go down to the ferrule to be an alternative, right? [00:24:40] Speaker 04: No, it can go anywhere to be an alternative. [00:24:44] Speaker 04: But that's not an EMI filter. [00:24:47] Speaker 04: Your argument is that hazard discloses this alternative, and it doesn't. [00:24:51] Speaker 02: What about the external solder connection issue? [00:24:54] Speaker 04: If you have a pin that goes somewhere else. [00:24:57] Speaker 02: No, no, no. [00:24:58] Speaker 02: But I mean, a motivation to combine, a reason for having come up with an invention according to the patent office and the board. [00:25:05] Speaker 02: Yes, it's undisputed. [00:25:06] Speaker 02: And it was known that there were problems with external solder connections. [00:25:11] Speaker 04: Yes, there were problems. [00:25:12] Speaker 02: And you obviously need those if you don't do them. [00:25:14] Speaker 04: There are no problems with external solder connections, cracking of the capacitor. [00:25:20] Speaker 02: That's a benefit. [00:25:21] Speaker 04: A gain. [00:25:22] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:25:23] Speaker 04: In fact, that's what our patent discloses. [00:25:25] Speaker 02: But that's a reason for quantum skill in the art who knew that they could use grounding through the pin, right? [00:25:33] Speaker 04: If you know you can ground through the pin, agreed. [00:25:36] Speaker 02: And they say that when we ground through the pin, we're going to avoid problems with the soldering connections on the exterior. [00:25:42] Speaker 04: Right. [00:25:43] Speaker 04: A presuppose is an understanding that hazard teaches the alternative. [00:25:48] Speaker 04: Our position is hazard does not teach the alternative. [00:25:51] Speaker 04: Doesn't say remove the educational placement. [00:25:53] Speaker 02: Assuming that Hazard does teach the alternative, then do you agree that the motivation to combine can't be challenged? [00:26:02] Speaker 01: I agree. [00:26:03] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:26:03] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:26:05] Speaker 01: Okay. [00:26:06] Speaker 01: Thank you, Mr. Neinfeld, for your time. [00:26:08] Speaker 01: The case is submitted. [00:26:09] Speaker 01: Thank both councils.