[00:00:25] Speaker 03: The last case is in Ray Hodges, 2017, 1434. [00:00:31] Speaker 03: Mr. LeBlanc. [00:00:35] Speaker 00: Yes, sir. [00:00:35] Speaker 00: Steve LeBlanc for the Petitioner, the appellant. [00:00:42] Speaker 00: Do you do a lot of administrative work? [00:00:45] Speaker 00: No, sir. [00:00:45] Speaker 00: Mostly trial work, not appeals. [00:00:47] Speaker 00: This is interesting being here. [00:00:50] Speaker 00: It's the first appeal I've had, so I appreciate the opportunity. [00:00:54] Speaker 00: The applicant [00:00:55] Speaker 00: filed a patent application for a drain valve. [00:00:58] Speaker 00: It's a drain valve that has been in existence before many of the components have. [00:01:03] Speaker 00: If you're familiar with a drain valve, it's connected to a pressurized system to periodically relieve pressure or liquid from the system. [00:01:11] Speaker 00: This particular drain valve also included the combined features of having a manually operated portion of the valve that could either manually relieve pressure or fluid, therefore bypassing the automatic drain, [00:01:24] Speaker 00: or isolate the drain valve for repairs and maintenance. [00:01:26] Speaker 02: Do you agree that all of these claims rise or fall with Independent Claim 1? [00:01:31] Speaker 00: Yes, Your Honor, absolutely. [00:01:33] Speaker 00: Independent Claim 1 recites the elements that make this automatic drain valve both novel and non-obvious in light of Rasmussen and France. [00:01:45] Speaker 00: France is a patent that issued in the mid-'60s to the same assignee as this patent. [00:01:50] Speaker 02: You argue in the blue brief that valve body properly is construed as an outer casing that contains the internal parts of the valve. [00:02:02] Speaker 02: Correct. [00:02:03] Speaker 02: But didn't the PTAB apply exactly that construction? [00:02:07] Speaker 00: I don't believe they did. [00:02:07] Speaker 00: For several reasons. [00:02:11] Speaker 02: One... Let me direct you to JA5 finding that the seat of the unlabeled valve would be an internal part of [00:02:19] Speaker 02: and contained within the outer casing of drain valve 10. [00:02:23] Speaker 00: That's on appeal. [00:02:25] Speaker 00: You're absolutely correct. [00:02:26] Speaker 00: The patent office on appeal changed the factual basis for affirming. [00:02:31] Speaker 00: It's important to note, if you look at figure 7 of Rasmussen, prior to this appeal, the rejection was always, 100% of the time, based on the construction of valve body is everything to the right of the tank shown in figure 7. [00:02:49] Speaker 00: And at the PTAB, the board said the sole issue that everybody agrees about is, is the valve above 17A, is that part of the valve body? [00:03:01] Speaker 00: Now on appeal, the Patent Office has changed the factual support for that rejection and says, no, not the valve above 17A, but the Patent Office says there is a seat, an inlet seat in 17A. [00:03:17] Speaker 00: I 100 percent agree, as we pointed out in our reply, 100 percent agree that 17A is part of the valve body, but I 100 percent dispute that 17A has an inlet seat. [00:03:29] Speaker 00: It has no reason for an inlet seat. [00:03:31] Speaker 00: It connects to a valve. [00:03:32] Speaker 00: It connects to a pipe. [00:03:34] Speaker 00: It doesn't connect to a valve seat inside. [00:03:37] Speaker 00: There's no reason why it would have an inlet seat. [00:03:39] Speaker 00: It's not inherent. [00:03:41] Speaker 00: And the Patent Office's changed position to support the obviousness and anticipation [00:03:47] Speaker 00: tells us that the previous rejection was not factually supported. [00:03:51] Speaker 00: Applying our construction, which the Patent Office, I believe, agrees is appropriate. [00:03:56] Speaker 00: They've modified the factual basis to support the rejection to say there's something inside 17A that's never been said before, and it's not stated in Rasmussen, and it wouldn't have a valve seat. [00:04:06] Speaker 05: But is it clear from the claims that the inlet seat has to be in the valve body? [00:04:12] Speaker 00: The inlet seat has to be not only in the valve body, but defined by the valve body. [00:04:16] Speaker 00: The elements are inside the valve body. [00:04:19] Speaker 00: There are internal components inside the valve body. [00:04:21] Speaker 00: The claim says that the valve body has to define the inlet seat. [00:04:25] Speaker 00: It forms the inlet seat. [00:04:27] Speaker 00: So it's not only in the valve body, it's part of the valve body. [00:04:29] Speaker 05: Even if we agree on you with respect to the anticipation arguments, there are several obviousness findings. [00:04:39] Speaker 05: And you don't dispute the findings with respect to the motivation to combine. [00:04:45] Speaker 05: Rasmussen in France, right? [00:04:48] Speaker 00: No, I don't, Your Honor, because I dispute the prima facie existence of all the elements, and it's based on the anticipation. [00:04:57] Speaker 00: If, let me address France first, there was a rejection based on France that was abandoned because, quite frankly, it's just unsupportable. [00:05:05] Speaker 00: And the Patent Office did the right thing and didn't pursue that argument. [00:05:08] Speaker 00: France does not teach anything about a censor having a signal that [00:05:11] Speaker 00: detects a pressure reflective of the downstream pressure inside the inlet. [00:05:17] Speaker 00: So France doesn't teach a sensor downstream of the inlet that produces a signal. [00:05:23] Speaker 00: Can't argue about that anymore. [00:05:25] Speaker 00: Rasmussen also doesn't. [00:05:27] Speaker 00: In the anticipation argument, we point out that Rasmussen has no inlet seats. [00:05:32] Speaker 00: Rasmussen has a sensor, 42, definitely has a sensor, but there are no inlet seats. [00:05:37] Speaker 00: So the sensor in Rasmussen is upstream [00:05:40] Speaker 00: of every seat in Rasmussen. [00:05:42] Speaker 05: And what about either of anything in either of those would indicate that you couldn't take a downstream valve and move it upstream or inlet? [00:05:57] Speaker 00: Well, I think if I understand your question, why couldn't you add an inlet seat to Rasmussen? [00:06:05] Speaker 00: So that now all of a sudden the sensor is downstream of an inlet seat. [00:06:09] Speaker 00: I think that's the obviousness rejection is if you take France and you add the inlet seat to Rasmussen well first off as we as we somewhat discuss I'm not sure we argued very hard because it's probably not our best argument but it's a reality is how do you combine all that stuff? [00:06:23] Speaker 00: You know these are simple mechanical inventions certainly not near complicated to what I've been listening to the last hour and a half. [00:06:30] Speaker 00: But nonetheless they're difficult to get over obviousness rejection because [00:06:34] Speaker 00: The inventors didn't invent a valve seat, didn't invent a valve body, didn't invent members, didn't invent a sensor. [00:06:40] Speaker 00: What they invented is they had a valve, the France valve, that had been in existence and operation for 50 years. [00:06:46] Speaker 00: And they discovered, they identified, they realized, which is part of the inventive process, hey, this valve that has integrated operation, it actually creates, it introduces operator error. [00:06:57] Speaker 00: Operators can now misposition this valve, and we have problems. [00:07:00] Speaker 00: So they said, let's fix that. [00:07:02] Speaker 00: So the first thing they did that's not obvious is they identified a problem. [00:07:06] Speaker 00: The second thing is they figured out how to do it. [00:07:08] Speaker 00: And that's where we say there is no prima facie rejection because nobody's ever put a sensor inside a valve downstream of the inlet with the rest of the limitations. [00:07:18] Speaker 00: It's a hurdle that everybody bears in simple mechanical is all the elements are out there. [00:07:24] Speaker 00: But we would say, why would you pick something and put it in Rasmussen [00:07:28] Speaker 00: which is a completely different drain valve, by the way. [00:07:30] Speaker 00: It's a float drain valve. [00:07:32] Speaker 00: Not the same thing as this art. [00:07:34] Speaker 00: They're all drain valves, but when asked why wouldn't it be obvious, well, they're really sort of different. [00:07:41] Speaker 00: As a practical matter, how would you put all this stuff from France inside of Rasmussen? [00:07:47] Speaker 00: And by stuff, I mean, if you are going to add an inlet seat to Rasmussen, you would only do that because you're going to add a valve member that moves in or out of engagement with the inlet seat. [00:07:57] Speaker 00: As you can see in Figure 7, [00:07:58] Speaker 00: or figure four, which is enlarged, there's not a whole lot of real estate in there. [00:08:03] Speaker 00: And I don't mean that you can't just build a bigger valve, but there are a lot of practicalities that it's difficult to address as saying it's obvious. [00:08:16] Speaker 05: But is your primary argument that the valve body has to define the inlet seat, or is your primary argument that the sensor has to be downstream? [00:08:28] Speaker 05: of the inlet seat? [00:08:29] Speaker 00: Well, it depends. [00:08:29] Speaker 00: On anticipation, the valve body has to define the inlet seat, and that's not present in Rasmussen. [00:08:36] Speaker 00: On obviousness, it's sort of tied to that. [00:08:39] Speaker 00: And let me see if I can articulate it this way. [00:08:42] Speaker 00: If the claim is rejected as Rasmussen in view of France, we would say France doesn't teach a valve downstream of the inlet, just doesn't have it. [00:08:53] Speaker 00: And Rasmussen doesn't either, because it doesn't have an inlet seat. [00:08:55] Speaker 00: So it can't teach that element. [00:08:57] Speaker 00: Does that make sense? [00:08:58] Speaker 05: Well, when you're combining references, you don't have to have all of the elements in each reference. [00:09:07] Speaker 00: No, but that's correct. [00:09:09] Speaker 00: But I'm saying the element of a sensor located downstream of the inlet seat, neither of those references have it. [00:09:17] Speaker 00: France doesn't have a sensor, and Rasmussen has a sensor upstream of every inlet. [00:09:21] Speaker 00: I'm sorry, upstream of every seat. [00:09:23] Speaker 00: It doesn't even have an inlet seat. [00:09:26] Speaker 00: It's difficult to say without saying it's hindsight, why would somebody put an inlet seat in Rasmussen? [00:09:33] Speaker 00: And in the obviousness rejection, I believe the Patent Office's position is, if you consider that Rasmussen has an inlet seat, then it also has a sensor downstream of the inlet seat. [00:09:45] Speaker 00: And I think that's circular. [00:09:46] Speaker 00: Rasmussen and France is being combined with Rasmussen to provide the inlet seat. [00:09:52] Speaker 00: Well, since Rasmussen doesn't have an inlet seat, it cannot have a valve downstream of an inlet seat. [00:09:59] Speaker 00: And I understand it's a close edge to say, but once you add the inlet seat of France, then you have the valve downstream of the inlet seat. [00:10:08] Speaker 00: But I think that's an example of hindsight. [00:10:12] Speaker 00: Why would you put that inlet seat from France there to get a sensor downstream of the inlet seat? [00:10:18] Speaker 00: You wouldn't. [00:10:18] Speaker 00: There's no reason to do that. [00:10:20] Speaker 00: And perhaps we could have argued that there wasn't a motivation to combine, but I'm more a fan of the discrete elements. [00:10:27] Speaker 00: And in this case, the sensor in Rasmussen is not downstream of an inlet seat. [00:10:34] Speaker 00: That's what the inventors came up as a solution. [00:10:37] Speaker 00: It's unique. [00:10:38] Speaker 00: It's not obvious. [00:10:39] Speaker 00: And in figures one through four, it shows how by doing that, you get an indication to an operator, which in this environment, it might be in railroad trains that are a mile long, [00:10:49] Speaker 00: Now you have an indication a mile away saying, hey, somebody has mispositioned that valve. [00:10:54] Speaker 00: We need to go out there and look at that. [00:10:55] Speaker 00: That's a real improvement over France, and it's a real improvement over Rasmussen, which is a completely different kind of valve. [00:11:04] Speaker 00: Subject to your questions, I'll reserve the rest of the time for rebuttal. [00:11:08] Speaker 03: We will vote for you, Mr. LeBlanc. [00:11:10] Speaker 03: Mrs. Schoenfeld. [00:11:13] Speaker 01: May it please the Court. [00:11:16] Speaker 01: As my opponent pointed out, the claims are to an improvement over the Franz valve of adding a pressure sensor between the two valves. [00:11:27] Speaker 01: It would be obvious to add the pressure sensor to Franz. [00:11:30] Speaker 02: And his argument now that there are... In a lot of recent cases, we've vacated and remanded the PTO for lack of an adequate explanation. [00:11:40] Speaker 01: Correct. [00:11:41] Speaker 02: Would you identify the specific explanation and the record sites [00:11:45] Speaker 02: the factual findings in the record that you believe are sufficient to affirm the determination that Rasmussen anticipates the asserted claim. [00:11:58] Speaker 01: That Rasmussen anticipates the asserted claim? [00:12:04] Speaker 02: Sure. [00:12:05] Speaker 02: And as well, the obviousness ones. [00:12:08] Speaker 02: You might as well do both at once. [00:12:11] Speaker 01: Okay. [00:12:12] Speaker 02: Because I think it's pretty messy. [00:12:15] Speaker 01: Okay, so the, I mean the claims here are to, you know, an improved drain valve. [00:12:22] Speaker 01: The pressure sensor is the only thing that's being added. [00:12:25] Speaker 01: I mean, if we look at what the board did, the board agreed with the examiner findings on appendix four, and then the board addressed the specific issue of the rejection, which is the, [00:12:45] Speaker 01: positioning of the rasmussen inlet seat. [00:12:48] Speaker 01: The board found that the examiner had the better position. [00:12:52] Speaker 01: So in affirming the examiner, the board affirmed the examiner's rejection. [00:13:03] Speaker 01: You know, if we look at the, I believe the final rejection on 271, the examiner lays out where [00:13:10] Speaker 01: Rasmussen has the first member, has the second member, has the bell body, has the censor. [00:13:17] Speaker 05: And then... So you're relying on just this little piece on Appendix 5 as the entirety of the anticipation rejection? [00:13:28] Speaker 01: Well, Appendix 4 and 5, because the board states that the examiner finds that Rasmussen discloses all of the independent claim 1. [00:13:40] Speaker 01: And as we see from the record, the examiner pointed to each of the pieces of claim one. [00:13:44] Speaker 01: I mean, claim one is very short. [00:13:45] Speaker 01: There's only a drain valve, a body, inlet seat, outlet seat, two valve members, and a sensor. [00:13:53] Speaker 01: So the examiner had pointed to that. [00:13:54] Speaker 01: The board found that they agreed with that analysis and then discussed the narrowed issue in the briefing, which was the positioning of the resmusen. [00:14:05] Speaker 01: And then for the [00:14:08] Speaker 01: Obviously. [00:14:09] Speaker 01: Where is the inlet seat in Rasmussen? [00:14:19] Speaker 01: The inlet seat would be connected to the valve which is above 17A. [00:14:28] Speaker 01: So in figure. [00:14:31] Speaker 05: Yeah, but what about Rasmussen indicates that that is the inlet seat? [00:14:36] Speaker 05: other than the board just saying it is? [00:14:40] Speaker 01: Well, there is clearly a valve. [00:14:42] Speaker 01: There's no dispute that there's a valve above the inlet port 17A. [00:14:50] Speaker 01: And in fact, Hodges to the board didn't dispute that there was an inlet seat. [00:14:59] Speaker 01: If we turn to 256, note 1, [00:15:04] Speaker 01: says applicant acknowledges the center is downstream of the inlet seat in the valve above 17A, as stated in the present reduction. [00:15:12] Speaker 05: There's nothing that says that the inlet seat is integrated with the valve structure. [00:15:22] Speaker 01: Well, 17A is a port, and there's a valve above the port. [00:15:24] Speaker 01: In 17A, there's flow being controlled through 17A with a valve. [00:15:31] Speaker 01: A typical valve has a seat [00:15:33] Speaker 01: a member to control the flow. [00:15:38] Speaker 01: So I don't think there's an issue that there is like a typical vowel, that there would be a vowel member, a vowel seat. [00:15:48] Speaker 01: You know, this drawing in figure seven is a schematic combined with a specific drawing, so I think it's [00:15:57] Speaker 01: not entirely clear exactly where the valve member is, but it's clear there is a valve member. [00:16:03] Speaker 05: You've got to have all the elements of the claim for anticipation. [00:16:07] Speaker 01: Right. [00:16:08] Speaker 01: So the examiner found that the inlet seat would be above 17A. [00:16:16] Speaker 05: Above the valve body. [00:16:19] Speaker 05: Above what? [00:16:20] Speaker 05: Above the valve body. [00:16:22] Speaker 01: Well, the examiner found [00:16:24] Speaker 01: So if we look at the claim and how the claim, which is the same way that the specification defines valve body, valve body is defined by the inlet seat. [00:16:36] Speaker 01: So all the valve body needs to do is contain an inlet seat. [00:16:42] Speaker 01: So based on the claim language and the specification language, actually, if we look at 49, the valve body defines an inlet seat. [00:16:51] Speaker 02: Could a valve function without an inlet seat? [00:16:55] Speaker 01: I don't believe so. [00:16:57] Speaker 01: I'm not aware of every single kind of valve there is there, but you need to have the ceiling to control the flow. [00:17:04] Speaker 01: Right. [00:17:05] Speaker 05: How does the valve body define the inlet seat if the inlet seat is outside of and above the valve body in Rasmussen? [00:17:15] Speaker 01: Well, it's not clear exactly where the seat would be in Rasmussen. [00:17:25] Speaker 01: the valve body could include more than just ten, just housing ten in Rasmussen. [00:17:34] Speaker 01: The way that, like I said, the way the claim is written is very broad and it certainly leaves the possibility open that you would have a valve body which includes that valve as opposed to just the housing because nothing in the claim or specification limits it. [00:17:55] Speaker 01: The most simple way to reject this claim is over the France and Rasmussen rejection, which my opponent admitted is the same valve with the valve body, everything included, just missing a pressure sensor. [00:18:13] Speaker 01: And Rasmussen has a pressure sensor. [00:18:15] Speaker 01: As I directed to you earlier, he admits that the pressure sensor is downstream of the inlet. [00:18:20] Speaker 01: See, he doesn't contest the motivation to combine [00:18:25] Speaker 01: So that's the easiest way to get there, the most simple way, and no objections to the fact that Frans is the same valve body, Rasmussen has a pressure sensor, and it would be obvious to use a pressure sensor in that valve. [00:18:45] Speaker 01: If there are no further questions, I'll yield the rest of my time. [00:18:50] Speaker 03: All right, thank you, Ms. [00:18:50] Speaker 03: Schumfeld. [00:18:52] Speaker 03: Mr. LeBlanc has four and a half minutes. [00:18:55] Speaker 02: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:18:56] Speaker 02: I don't think I'll need it all. [00:18:57] Speaker 02: I think I missed where you conceded the motivation to combine. [00:19:01] Speaker 00: Where I conceded the motivation? [00:19:02] Speaker 02: Your opposing counsel said you conceded the motivation to combine. [00:19:06] Speaker 00: I thought she said that I conceded that the combination of France with Rasmussen taught the sensor downstream of the inlet. [00:19:16] Speaker 00: I thought the motivation to combine, I think I addressed to Judge O'Malley, those are some of the softer, [00:19:24] Speaker 00: softer issues are harder to argue. [00:19:26] Speaker 00: Those are clear subjective calls. [00:19:29] Speaker 00: And our position in any of these simple mechanical, is they're really hard to argue that it's not obvious in hindsight? [00:19:38] Speaker 00: But the reality is this company's been making this vow for 50 years. [00:19:41] Speaker 00: If it was obvious, they would have done it a long time ago. [00:19:44] Speaker 00: And I know there's some case law saying that's not an argument. [00:19:47] Speaker 00: I don't understand that. [00:19:47] Speaker 00: I think that is an argument of non-obviousness. [00:19:50] Speaker 00: If I could have done it before, I would have. [00:19:52] Speaker 00: But the idea didn't come up to Hodges, and these ideas don't just pop in. [00:19:57] Speaker 00: You're looking at customers saying, hey, we're having a problem. [00:20:00] Speaker 00: Identifying the problem is part of the non-obviousness analysis. [00:20:05] Speaker 00: Finding out how to do it is really technically pretty cool, too, in a little valve like this, but identifying the problem is half of the battle. [00:20:12] Speaker 00: So I don't think we've argued there's no motivation to combine directly, but we've argued that I'm not sure you could do this stuff. [00:20:21] Speaker 00: I certainly have argued today that these valves are different enough that I'm not sure anybody would be motivated to add an inlet seat to Rasmussen that already has external isolation valves. [00:20:30] Speaker 00: Why does it need an inlet seat? [00:20:32] Speaker 00: Why would you do that? [00:20:32] Speaker 05: As I understand it, your argument is even if you would be motivated to combine them, that still wouldn't work? [00:20:37] Speaker 00: No. [00:20:38] Speaker 00: Your Honor, even if you were motivated to combine them, you're still missing the element of a sensor downstream of an inlet seat. [00:20:44] Speaker 00: France doesn't have it, and Rasmussen doesn't have it. [00:20:47] Speaker 00: So where do you get to put a sensor downstream of an inlet seat? [00:20:51] Speaker 00: The only way you get that is from the application, and you artificially say, well, let's put an inlet seat in Rasmussen, then we have it. [00:20:59] Speaker 04: Well, didn't the PTO say that an inlet seat has to be inherent in Rasmussen? [00:21:05] Speaker 00: I think the patent office is definitely arguing that on this appeal, and it is not inherent. [00:21:10] Speaker 00: It absolutely is not inherent. [00:21:11] Speaker 00: It's anti-inherent. [00:21:13] Speaker 00: There is no valve member in Rasmussen. [00:21:15] Speaker 00: Why would you have a valve seat without a valve member? [00:21:18] Speaker 00: I think in Judge Wallach's question, can you have a valve without an inlet? [00:21:22] Speaker 00: I don't think so. [00:21:24] Speaker 00: Can you have an inlet seat without a valve member that operates against that? [00:21:27] Speaker 00: Definitely not. [00:21:27] Speaker 00: You would not. [00:21:28] Speaker 00: Why would you have it? [00:21:29] Speaker 00: It's like having a clutch in an automatic transmission car. [00:21:32] Speaker 00: It's not needed, not required. [00:21:35] Speaker 00: The other question I wanted to touch on is that we've, I think I heard this, [00:21:42] Speaker 00: Rasmussen has a sensor that's downstream of the inlet seat. [00:21:45] Speaker 00: We disagree with that, and it's tied into the anticipation. [00:21:49] Speaker 00: Rasmussen does not have an inlet seat, so it cannot have a sensor downstream of the inlet seat. [00:21:54] Speaker 00: The quote that my opponent recited is, we agree that if the inlet seat in the valve above 17A is an inlet seat, then there is a sensor downstream of that inlet seat, but we disagree that [00:22:08] Speaker 00: An inlet seat in another valve constitute an inlet seat in the valve body that we're talking about in Rasmussen. [00:22:16] Speaker 00: One item I want to briefly touch on is the scare of remand. [00:22:22] Speaker 00: We want to win this. [00:22:23] Speaker 00: We want to get a patent. [00:22:25] Speaker 00: But we have been arguing this claim construction since day one. [00:22:28] Speaker 00: I had a telephone interview. [00:22:30] Speaker 00: I did. [00:22:30] Speaker 00: Had a telephone interview. [00:22:32] Speaker 00: It's in the record in the response. [00:22:36] Speaker 00: And I had it tapped here, but I lost it. [00:22:38] Speaker 00: with the examiner and immediately said, hey, the issue is what is a valve body? [00:22:43] Speaker 00: And the examiner said, hey, body is everything. [00:22:46] Speaker 00: That's one of those nonce terms. [00:22:48] Speaker 00: And I said, no, it's really not. [00:22:49] Speaker 00: A valve body is like a car body, a human body. [00:22:52] Speaker 00: It's got real meaning. [00:22:55] Speaker 00: And we've disagreed about that from the beginning. [00:22:58] Speaker 00: At the board, the board said the issue on appeal is whether that valve above 17A [00:23:05] Speaker 00: is the inlet there is part of the valve body. [00:23:08] Speaker 00: That's the issue. [00:23:09] Speaker 00: There is nothing to remand. [00:23:10] Speaker 00: It's not. [00:23:11] Speaker 00: It's not part of the valve body. [00:23:13] Speaker 00: That's the issue. [00:23:13] Speaker 00: There's no factual dispute to remand. [00:23:15] Speaker 00: I agree they didn't do a great job on some of the things. [00:23:18] Speaker 00: I didn't do a great job on some of the things. [00:23:20] Speaker 00: But there's nothing to remand here. [00:23:22] Speaker 00: We want to get a patent, but this isn't something that we want to go back and do it again. [00:23:25] Speaker 00: To be clear, I had a telephone interview. [00:23:30] Speaker 00: The examiner went final. [00:23:31] Speaker 00: We filed an appeal. [00:23:32] Speaker 00: We briefed an appeal. [00:23:34] Speaker 00: It was pulled out of appeal. [00:23:35] Speaker 00: A new rejection was asserted and it's appealed again. [00:23:39] Speaker 03: Thank you for your time.