[00:00:30] Speaker 03: All right, our next case for argument is 2019-1473, Fromos Tech versus Samsung. [00:00:38] Speaker 03: Mr. Kaufman, please proceed. [00:00:41] Speaker 01: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:00:56] Speaker 01: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:00:57] Speaker 01: May it please the court? [00:00:59] Speaker 01: We have two issues here this morning. [00:01:01] Speaker 01: Number one is the issue related to EDO and claim 22 and whether the board properly construed the term, the detector circuit allowing the bias voltage V1 to get arbitrarily close to the ground. [00:01:16] Speaker 01: The other question deals with the remainder of the challenge claims. [00:01:21] Speaker 01: And that is whether the combination of Park and Baker renders the claims obvious. [00:01:26] Speaker 01: We would submit that it does not. [00:01:28] Speaker 04: Because the board did nothing more than effectively exercise common sense when there's no teaching in either park or baker of an inverter which let me ask you a couple of housekeeping questions or clean things up One is on page 17 of the blueberry the last beginning of the last paragraph It says Holmes interpretation of the plain meaning should be adopted Yes, what it what is home like? [00:01:57] Speaker 01: That's a typo, Your Honor. [00:02:00] Speaker 01: Home is an unrelated party that we also represent. [00:02:05] Speaker 01: And that should be promoses and not homes. [00:02:09] Speaker 04: Oh, OK. [00:02:10] Speaker 04: You confuse the heck out of me. [00:02:11] Speaker 04: I must tell you. [00:02:14] Speaker 04: Second, on page 43 of the red brief, Samson says that the quote on page 17 of the blue brief [00:02:25] Speaker 04: that before the board, you argued that the plain meaning of the disputed phrase was a circuit that allows the designated target value of VBB to be closer to 0V, in any case closer to 0V than the one threshold below, is taken out of context. [00:02:44] Speaker 04: And that this, quote, the statement below did not report to define the plain meaning of the claim term. [00:02:53] Speaker 04: Instead, it was [00:02:55] Speaker 04: And this is their language. [00:02:57] Speaker 04: Instead, it was PROMOS's gloss on the rationale underlying the allowance of the claims. [00:03:03] Speaker 04: And they cite to JAA 1074 and 75, and it looks like they're right. [00:03:10] Speaker 01: And with respect, Your Honor, I would disagree with their characterization of it. [00:03:16] Speaker 01: OK, tell me why. [00:03:17] Speaker 01: So if we look at page 1074 and 1075, which is our brief before the board, [00:03:26] Speaker 01: We start out by identifying the limitation, which is the limitation that requires a detector circuit allowing the bias voltage to get arbitrarily close to the ground voltage. [00:03:37] Speaker 01: And then we discuss the specification and file history about what that means. [00:03:42] Speaker 01: And we talk about the specification and figure 3a and the improvements over figure 3a. [00:03:48] Speaker 01: And we talk about claim 22 being allowed based on the argument over Tsukamoto. [00:03:54] Speaker 01: And that the result, that this requires a circuit that allows it to design target value VBB to be close to zero volts, in any case closer to zero volts than one threshold below. [00:04:05] Speaker 01: And that's what we're arguing the plain meaning is here, Your Honor, in this appeal. [00:04:10] Speaker 01: And so I don't see any inconsistency there. [00:04:13] Speaker 01: But that's what we said. [00:04:14] Speaker 01: We said what the limitation was. [00:04:16] Speaker 01: We pointed to pieces of the spec and the file history as to providing meaning to that. [00:04:21] Speaker 01: And then we said, here's what it means. [00:04:24] Speaker 01: on 1075 and 1076 and applied that to prior art that was cited by Samsung. [00:04:30] Speaker 01: And so I would respectfully disagree with Samsung that this was not a claim construction or not an articulation of the plain meaning, but was in fact, you know, an explanation of the plain meaning. [00:04:44] Speaker 02: How can you, just generally, for plain meaning, do you think when someone says this term should be given in its ordinary plain meaning, that would [00:04:53] Speaker 02: entail a Phillips analysis of looking to the specification in the prosecution history? [00:04:59] Speaker 02: I mean, I always thought the plain meaning would be, we're going to let, for example, in a district court case, we're going to let the jury decide what this means. [00:05:07] Speaker 02: These words don't require any interpretation. [00:05:10] Speaker 02: Everybody knows what it means. [00:05:12] Speaker 02: And so is it consistent to say, I want to have a plain meaning interpretation, and at the same time, look at intrinsic evidence and apply the Phillips standard? [00:05:22] Speaker 01: I think it is, Your Honor. [00:05:23] Speaker 01: And I think perhaps the O2 case that we cited in the brief provides some guidance on this point, where the parties in that case agreed to a plain meaning. [00:05:32] Speaker 01: They both said plain meaning. [00:05:33] Speaker 01: And then when it went to the jury in an infringement context, they were arguing over what the plain meaning was. [00:05:40] Speaker 01: And this court required construction to resolve that dispute. [00:05:46] Speaker 02: So in the district court in that case. [00:05:48] Speaker 02: was said, look, at this point, you should have seen that plain meaning was not resolved in the dispute, so you should have constructed, construed the term. [00:05:56] Speaker 02: How is this brought to the board's attention that plain meaning wasn't going to be adequate here? [00:06:01] Speaker 02: You think that it was brought to the board's attention, for example, page A1074, is there anything else that explicitly brings it to the board's attention that, hey, there needs to be a Phillips-type construction here because the plain meaning isn't doing it? [00:06:17] Speaker 01: 1074 and 1075 is the extent of the discussion of that particular point in the record, Your Honor. [00:06:32] Speaker 02: What about the word arbitrarily close? [00:06:35] Speaker 02: Does the specification define this term? [00:06:38] Speaker 01: The specification does not explicitly define the term. [00:06:41] Speaker 01: It distinguishes figure 3a, which is the prior art, [00:06:46] Speaker 01: as not being arbitrarily close. [00:06:48] Speaker 01: And that was also the distinction that was made during the prosecution history, where the Tsukamoto art had a similar structure. [00:06:56] Speaker 01: And the distinction between the application claim, but it was 34, which matured into claim 22, explained that something that was set to one threshold from ground [00:07:09] Speaker 01: was not arbitrarily close, and you needed a circuit design that would get you closer than one threshold to ground to be arbitrarily close. [00:07:16] Speaker 02: What about the language arbitrarily close gives you that meaning? [00:07:20] Speaker 02: I mean, the claim itself is functional, this language. [00:07:23] Speaker 02: It's very functional, and it talks about not setting the threshold voltage, right? [00:07:28] Speaker 02: It talks about setting something else to not be arbitrarily close to ground. [00:07:33] Speaker 01: The circuit that allowed the design full, I'm sorry, yes, it talks about setting V1 to be arbitrarily close to ground, but not full. [00:07:42] Speaker 02: But how, you know, so you see my concern is that, of course, the patent specification talks about a lot of different possible circuits, but it's not claimed that way. [00:07:52] Speaker 02: Instead, it's claimed with functional language. [00:07:55] Speaker 02: And you're reading in something for, you're saying, you're reading in, I guess, [00:08:03] Speaker 02: something other than BBB for what needs to be arbitrarily close? [00:08:10] Speaker 01: I think we are interpreting it primarily in light of the file history, which says that it distinguishes arbitrarily close from something that's one threshold voltage below. [00:08:20] Speaker 01: And that distinction was accepted by the examiner in light of the allowance of the claims. [00:08:24] Speaker 01: And so that's what we're relying on for our definition of arbitrarily close. [00:08:30] Speaker 01: It is functional. [00:08:31] Speaker 01: but the function is set by the specific arrangement of the circle. [00:08:41] Speaker 01: In light of the time here, unless there are any further questions about the Ido issue, I'm going to transition to Baker and Park. [00:08:55] Speaker 01: And the fundamental problem with the combination of Baker and Park is that nowhere in Baker or Park is there any [00:09:02] Speaker 01: teaching or suggestion to use an inverter that has a trip point that is substantially insensitive to the voltage change. [00:09:14] Speaker 01: Hart doesn't say anything. [00:09:15] Speaker 01: Nobody argues to the contrary. [00:09:19] Speaker 04: Well, expert testimony said that equation 11.4 in Baker disclosed or suggested the claim to invoke. [00:09:31] Speaker 01: But all that equation 11.4 discloses or suggests is that you can calculate the trip point or the switching point, as Baker refers to it, of a particular inverter when you feed the appropriate variables into that equation. [00:09:46] Speaker 01: It doesn't teach you to select the variables that would lead you to an inverter that is insensitive to voltage variations. [00:09:55] Speaker 01: And that may be a subtle difference, Your Honor, but that's the important difference. [00:10:00] Speaker 01: There's no suggestion to do the math in the way that their expert suggests. [00:10:06] Speaker 02: What about Park's reference to one having the overall detector circuit be impervious to changes in the power supply? [00:10:15] Speaker 02: Would that be enough to cause a poser to say, oh, one way to do that would be with the inverter? [00:10:23] Speaker 01: So Park just says it's good to not have the signal vary as much. [00:10:28] Speaker 01: But Park says nothing about using the inverter to do that. [00:10:31] Speaker 01: Park presents an improved circuit design. [00:10:34] Speaker 01: And Nowhere mentions the inverter. [00:10:36] Speaker 01: The prior art had inverters. [00:10:37] Speaker 01: So there's nothing in Park to draw that inference from. [00:10:41] Speaker 01: Park says, we'd like to make it better. [00:10:44] Speaker 01: And here is our specific solution. [00:10:46] Speaker 02: We do say Park says we'd like to make it better. [00:10:48] Speaker 02: I thought Park said... [00:10:50] Speaker 02: We want to make it so the detector is impervious to changes in the voltage supply. [00:10:55] Speaker 02: Do you agree with that? [00:10:56] Speaker 01: I agree with that. [00:10:56] Speaker 02: OK, so it's not just better. [00:10:58] Speaker 02: It's more specific than that. [00:10:59] Speaker 01: Yes, it's better in that context so that the signal OSCEN does not vary as much. [00:11:04] Speaker 02: And your view is that that general reference doesn't give you enough to know that it's the inverter that you should muck with to accomplish that goal. [00:11:12] Speaker 01: Particularly when they have put in other circuit elements to accomplish that goal. [00:11:17] Speaker 01: Yes, Your Honor. [00:11:23] Speaker 01: And finally, just briefly, there's the issue of the homework problem that the board also relied on from Baker that in its arguing or concluding that Baker would teach a person of skill in the art. [00:11:35] Speaker 01: And we contend that the homework problem should not have been considered because it was not discussed in the petition. [00:11:44] Speaker 02: Was it discussed in an expert report that was cited to in the petition? [00:11:49] Speaker 01: It was discussed in an expert report that was cited to in the petition, yes. [00:11:52] Speaker 02: And the specific page on which it was mentioned was cited, right? [00:11:55] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:11:55] Speaker 01: But there's no mention of the homework problem itself in the petition, but they do cite the paragraph that he discusses again. [00:12:04] Speaker 01: But we submit that that's not much different than having a piece of prior art with alternative theories relying on one theory and then switching theories and picking a separate theory from the prior art [00:12:14] Speaker 01: when you decide that your first theory is not going to get you there, and that's what this court in the Waseca case said was not appropriate in light of the strictures of Section 312. [00:12:24] Speaker 02: Do you think the homework problem was even necessary? [00:12:26] Speaker 01: No, it doesn't add anything to the homework problem. [00:12:29] Speaker 01: All the homework problem says is do the math to get this result. [00:12:34] Speaker 01: It doesn't say [00:12:35] Speaker 01: anything about the benefits of a switching point, voltage-intensive switching point in the inverter. [00:12:41] Speaker 01: And so now we would say that even if included, it doesn't change the result. [00:12:46] Speaker 01: If there are no further questions, I'd like to reserve the balance of my time. [00:12:49] Speaker 03: We'll reserve your rebuttal time. [00:12:51] Speaker 03: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:12:53] Speaker 03: Mr. Modi, please proceed. [00:13:17] Speaker 00: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:13:18] Speaker 00: May it please the court. [00:13:19] Speaker 00: The board carefully considered the party's arguments and evidence, and credited, for example, Samsung's expert over Chrome OS's expert. [00:13:27] Speaker 00: This court should affirm. [00:13:28] Speaker 00: Let me start with the Claim 22 issue. [00:13:33] Speaker 00: There, the board, based on the extensive evidence, found that ITO simply discloses the limitation of Claim 22, the detector circuit limitation. [00:13:42] Speaker 00: Now, PROMAS argues that the board should have interpreted that language to mean and include, for example, things like target voltage, threshold voltage, design target voltage. [00:13:54] Speaker 00: And we believe that's even not remotely a plain and ordinary meaning of this term, as Jeff stole your questioning demonstrated. [00:14:03] Speaker 00: The plain and ordinary meaning of the term is what it says. [00:14:06] Speaker 00: It's arbitrary close to zero, and it doesn't go above the, it doesn't become positive. [00:14:12] Speaker 02: Is it your view that once they say plain and ordinary meaning, they couldn't rely on the prosecution history and the specification to interpret the claim? [00:14:21] Speaker 00: Your Honor, they certainly could have looked at it to see if the plan and ordering meaning was consistent with the specification and prosecution history. [00:14:28] Speaker 00: But I think that's the issue we have here, is their arguments have been shifting. [00:14:32] Speaker 00: So if you look at, even if you say, we believe they did not raise a claim construction issue before the board. [00:14:40] Speaker 00: We don't raise waiver lightly. [00:14:42] Speaker 00: This is one of those cases that they simply needed to do more before the board. [00:14:46] Speaker 00: But even if you consider that one single paragraph, [00:14:49] Speaker 00: that Mr. Kaufman pointed to on appendix 1074 to 1075 as raising some type of claim construction issue, PROMAS' argument fails for a number of reasons. [00:14:59] Speaker 00: First, despite PROMAS saying in its gray brief at five that its construction is verbatim before this court than what it was before the board, that's simply not true. [00:15:10] Speaker 00: If you look at page 15 of the blue brief and compare that to the construction that was offered to the board, it's different. [00:15:17] Speaker 00: So their arguments have been shifted. [00:15:19] Speaker 00: So if you look at blue brief 15, they said it's a circuit structure that has a target voltage that is between one threshold below ground and ground, but never becomes positive. [00:15:31] Speaker 00: And that's right under the summary of the argument. [00:15:33] Speaker 00: You'll see that. [00:15:34] Speaker 00: When you compare that to blue brief 17, which is what they offered before the board, they said, [00:15:39] Speaker 00: a circuit that allows the design target value of VVB to be close to zero, in any case closer to zero, than one threshold below. [00:15:48] Speaker 00: So their arguments have been shifting, and it's simply not fair to Samsung or this board or to the board for them to keep on shifting their claim construction arguments. [00:15:58] Speaker 00: Second, the support that they pointed to, just all this is getting to the point you were asking me about, the prosecution history and the specification. [00:16:06] Speaker 00: their support that they pointed, the arguments have been shifting. [00:16:09] Speaker 00: So if you look at their blue brief, again, if you look at blue brief 19, they said- So all of this just goes to waiver, right? [00:16:15] Speaker 03: Because the question of claim construction is a question of law. [00:16:18] Speaker 03: So whether their argument shifts or not is irrelevant, because as a matter of law, I have to decide what the claim term means, correct? [00:16:25] Speaker 00: Yes, Your Honor. [00:16:25] Speaker 03: So if you want to keep spinning your wheels on shifting, that's fine. [00:16:28] Speaker 03: I'll tell you I don't think they waived it. [00:16:30] Speaker 03: I feel quite strongly about that. [00:16:31] Speaker 03: Maybe my colleagues disagree. [00:16:33] Speaker 03: So if you want to spend more time on the word shifting, it's at your peril. [00:16:36] Speaker 00: Sure, Your Honor. [00:16:37] Speaker 00: I can jump to the claim construction point and address why we believe it's the incorrect construction that they're offering. [00:16:43] Speaker 00: So again, starting at the plain language of the claim, you don't see the words design target value. [00:16:49] Speaker 00: You don't see the words target value in the claim. [00:16:51] Speaker 00: You don't see the term threshold voltage anywhere in claim 22. [00:16:57] Speaker 00: So the plain language of the claim simply doesn't support them. [00:17:01] Speaker 00: Then you turn to the specification. [00:17:03] Speaker 00: Let's take a look at the specification. [00:17:05] Speaker 00: Nowhere does the specification use the word design target value. [00:17:09] Speaker 00: It's nowhere to be found. [00:17:11] Speaker 00: And certainly, it does not require the construction that's advocated by PROMAS that it says is the plain and ordinary meaning of the term. [00:17:18] Speaker 00: If you look at the passages that PROMA cites to the specification, again, none of those passages get to the claim construction that they want this court to adopt. [00:17:28] Speaker 02: Are you looking at like column three lines, around lines 14, 15, where it says the circuit that allows VBB to get arbitrary close to zero volts but does not allow VBB to become positive? [00:17:42] Speaker 00: Is that the language you want to respect? [00:17:43] Speaker 00: That's right, Your Honor. [00:17:43] Speaker 00: That's exactly right. [00:17:45] Speaker 02: I see your point there. [00:17:46] Speaker 02: What about the prosecution history? [00:17:47] Speaker 00: I'll get to the prosecution history. [00:17:48] Speaker 00: Let's go there right now. [00:17:50] Speaker 00: So if we actually, let's take a look at the prosecution history. [00:17:52] Speaker 00: So if we go to appendix 451. [00:18:01] Speaker 00: So pages 450 to 451 of the prosecution history is what they point to. [00:18:07] Speaker 00: And on the prosecution history, their position is that the prosecution history provides a clear and unambiguous meaning for this claim term. [00:18:16] Speaker 00: Again, that's not what we call a plain and ordinary meaning. [00:18:20] Speaker 00: So if you look at the prosecution history, nowhere in these pages will you find the definition that they're asking this court to adopt for this term. [00:18:27] Speaker 00: To the contrary, if you go to page 451, and I want to highlight footnote one, they actually said claim 34, which is now claim 22, is not limited to the embodiments described in applicant specification or drawings. [00:18:42] Speaker 00: And I think that's fatal to their argument with respect to the prosecution history, because they're asking this court [00:18:47] Speaker 00: to basically import limitations into the claim that are simply not present. [00:18:52] Speaker 00: In fact, there are other claims, Judge Stoll and Your Honors, that actually they knew how to claim the structure. [00:18:59] Speaker 00: So for example, if you look at claim 24, which depends from claim 22, and that's an appendix [00:19:06] Speaker 03: Well, how should we interpret this language that stands 450 to 451? [00:19:12] Speaker 03: They're responding to an indefinite misargument. [00:19:15] Speaker 03: Is that right? [00:19:15] Speaker 03: Am I remembering the rejection correctly? [00:19:19] Speaker 00: No, Your Honor. [00:19:19] Speaker 00: It was a prior art rejection. [00:19:21] Speaker 03: Oh, prior art. [00:19:22] Speaker 03: OK. [00:19:22] Speaker 03: All right. [00:19:22] Speaker 03: Well, that's why I asked. [00:19:24] Speaker 03: So they're responding to a prior art rejection. [00:19:27] Speaker 03: And they're saying, in the prior art, figure 3A, the transistor prevents VBB from becoming [00:19:36] Speaker 03: But Trinh? [00:19:37] Speaker 00: I believe there's a typo there. [00:19:38] Speaker 00: It should say positive. [00:19:39] Speaker 03: OK. [00:19:40] Speaker 03: All right. [00:19:40] Speaker 03: So thank you for helping me. [00:19:43] Speaker 03: So how would you have me interpret this distinction from figure 3a in the prior art? [00:19:52] Speaker 03: And did it overcome the rejection? [00:19:56] Speaker 00: Certainly, Your Honor. [00:19:57] Speaker 00: So what the file history tells us, these arguments, after they made these arguments, the examiner did allow the claim. [00:20:03] Speaker 03: So whatever it is they said in this sentence, [00:20:06] Speaker 03: caused the examiner to allow the claim, how does this sentence not support the construction they're arguing for as opposed to the one that you're arguing for? [00:20:18] Speaker 00: Sure, Your Honor. [00:20:18] Speaker 00: So let me explain. [00:20:19] Speaker 00: So again, if you look at these couple of paragraphs, nowhere do they actually say that the claim term arbitrarily close to zero requires a design target value. [00:20:30] Speaker 00: We don't see those terms here. [00:20:32] Speaker 02: Just to make sure I'm looking at the right place, we're looking at page 451. [00:20:36] Speaker 02: The first two full paragraphs. [00:20:39] Speaker 00: Yes, Your Honor. [00:20:39] Speaker 00: And I think Judge Moore was looking at the page prior to that. [00:20:43] Speaker 00: So it starts at 450, where it says, claim 34 is supported by applicant specification. [00:20:50] Speaker 00: So that's, I believe, what Judge Moore was referring to. [00:20:52] Speaker 00: I think our point is fairly simple here, that if you look at the prosecution history, nowhere in the prosecution history do you see the kind of words that they now want this court to import into the claim. [00:21:04] Speaker 02: Is there anything on this page that talks about the desire for it to be no more than one threshold lower than zero? [00:21:15] Speaker 02: I might not have the language right, but I don't see that language here as well. [00:21:19] Speaker 00: Right. [00:21:20] Speaker 00: So I think the closest that they get, Your Honor, is at the top of page 13. [00:21:25] Speaker 00: It says, but transistor M30 also prevents VBB from becoming closer to zero than the threshold voltage. [00:21:32] Speaker 00: But again, our point is they're talking about the structure of their circuits. [00:21:36] Speaker 00: And then in the footnote, they say we're not limiting our claims to that structure. [00:21:41] Speaker 00: And if you look at claim 24, claim 24 claims that structure. [00:21:45] Speaker 00: So they certainly knew how to claim the structure [00:21:48] Speaker 00: that they want this court to now essentially read into Claim 22. [00:21:54] Speaker 00: And again, this is a high bar that they have. [00:21:56] Speaker 00: This is not the plain and ordinary meaning of this term. [00:21:58] Speaker 00: They're asking this court to define this term in light of the prosecution history, which is anything, but it doesn't get them to where they want to be with respect to this claim. [00:22:09] Speaker 00: So if you look at the totality of the evidence, [00:22:13] Speaker 00: does not get them to their claim construction. [00:22:16] Speaker 03: But in light of your construction, which is quite a bit broader, how would they have gotten around figure 3A in the prior art, which is [00:22:30] Speaker 03: Almost exactly like Eto, right? [00:22:33] Speaker 00: So Your Honor, I'm glad you asked that because we do think there's a distinction between Eto and Figure 3A, which the board found. [00:22:40] Speaker 00: The board made a factual finding on that. [00:22:42] Speaker 03: Well, before you get to that, though, answer my predicate question, which is the one about under your construction, how could they have successfully avoided Figure 3A? [00:22:54] Speaker 03: I don't see how the examiner could have allowed the claims [00:22:57] Speaker 03: in light of Figure 3A if he had your claim construction in mind. [00:23:01] Speaker 00: So let me explain why. [00:23:02] Speaker 03: I understand. [00:23:02] Speaker 03: This is a very implicit, tenuous argument. [00:23:07] Speaker 03: So maybe it's not clear and unmistakable disclaimer, or maybe it isn't plain me. [00:23:10] Speaker 03: I don't know. [00:23:11] Speaker 03: But I'm just struggling with the technology. [00:23:13] Speaker 03: I don't know how the examiner allows this claim in light of Figure 3A if your construction is the one he has in mind. [00:23:19] Speaker 00: Let me try to help you, Your Honor. [00:23:21] Speaker 00: So the reference that the examiner was looking at was the Sukigawa reference. [00:23:25] Speaker 00: And it's interesting. [00:23:26] Speaker 00: We actually don't have that reference in the record here. [00:23:30] Speaker 00: This was such a big deal, they should have briefed this before the court and before the board and put that reference in the file history and before the record. [00:23:38] Speaker 00: But if you actually look at the Sukigawa reference, I did actually go look at it. [00:23:42] Speaker 00: It actually is three threshold below. [00:23:45] Speaker 00: So it's not one threshold below. [00:23:46] Speaker 00: It's three threshold below. [00:23:48] Speaker 00: And that's what they were trying to distinguish here. [00:23:50] Speaker 00: And you can actually see that. [00:23:51] Speaker 00: So if you go to appendix page 451, [00:23:55] Speaker 00: And it's right in the middle, it's the paragraph that says, in Tsukigawa. [00:24:00] Speaker 00: There, right in the middle, it says, because of transistors 106 and 108, the current through transistors 104, 106, and 108 to VBB will turn off if VBB gets closer to ground. [00:24:13] Speaker 00: ground than the sum of the threshold voltages. [00:24:16] Speaker 00: So it's the sum of those three threshold voltages. [00:24:19] Speaker 00: So Tsukigawa was actually operating. [00:24:21] Speaker 00: So if you had Judge Moore figure 3A, so let's say this is ground. [00:24:25] Speaker 00: Figure 3A was here. [00:24:26] Speaker 00: Tsukigawa was here. [00:24:27] Speaker 00: And so that's how they, again, the prosecution history is far from clear. [00:24:34] Speaker 00: It doesn't rise to the level of a clear and unmistakable disclaimer or a clear and ambiguous definition. [00:24:39] Speaker 00: But that's certainly one explanation for what the examiner may have thought and what was happening. [00:24:44] Speaker 00: And we believe that's what was happening. [00:24:46] Speaker 00: And then you go to ITO. [00:24:48] Speaker 00: Again, there's a factual finding made by the board, and the board is not entitled to deference on that. [00:24:52] Speaker 00: I think we should look at that. [00:24:53] Speaker 00: And that's on Appendix 18 in the board's final decision. [00:25:03] Speaker 00: There, the board found that, in other words, in the acknowledged prior art, the dynamic range of VVV was limited to minus VTN at the top end, whereas the demonstrative functioning of the detector in Ito has no such apparent limit. [00:25:18] Speaker 00: And we think, again, that's fatal to their argument, even if you were to give any weight to their prosecution history arguments. [00:25:24] Speaker 00: Ito is simply different, and the board made a factual finding on that point. [00:25:28] Speaker 00: So unless your honors have any other questions on this issue, I'd like to move on to the trip point issue. [00:25:35] Speaker 00: So with respect to the trip point issue, again, there, the board evaluated the evidence and the arguments. [00:25:41] Speaker 00: They credited Dr. Baker's testimony over Mr. Brumbaugh's testimony and found that the claims were invalid. [00:25:48] Speaker 00: I think, Judge Stoll, you raised an interesting issue, which is PARC actually is the reason we have the motivation. [00:25:54] Speaker 00: And then we actually had other reasons for the motivation. [00:25:57] Speaker 00: The Levet reference is another one we showed that provides the motivation to make the trip point insensitive to the voltage variations. [00:26:05] Speaker 00: So there is no hindsight analysis yet. [00:26:07] Speaker 02: I do agree, though, that there's nothing in Baker or any other prior reference that talks about making the trip point for the inverter insensitive to fluctuations in the power supply voltage. [00:26:18] Speaker 02: The park talks about making the detector itself insensitive to fluctuations in the power supply voltage But it doesn't say hey look to the inverter to do this So we actually have evidence your honor in the record on that and that's the Levet reference and dr. Baker cited to it. [00:26:34] Speaker 00: It's at a 45 and [00:26:36] Speaker 00: And it's lines 120 to 22. [00:26:39] Speaker 00: This is 45. [00:26:42] Speaker 00: Appendix 845. [00:26:43] Speaker 02: 845, thank you. [00:26:45] Speaker 00: And you'll see, and again, Dr. Baker talks about this in his declaration at paragraph 111 and that's cited too in the petition. [00:26:52] Speaker 00: You'll see if you look at column one, lines 20 to 22, Levet tells us that the trip point of an ideal input buffer, which is what we have in PARC, would be utterly stable and would be insensitive to variations in the supply voltage VCC. [00:27:05] Speaker 00: So there was motivation to get to this limitation. [00:27:09] Speaker 00: And then Baker tells us how you manipulate the trip point. [00:27:12] Speaker 02: Where is that discussed in Mr. Baker's? [00:27:14] Speaker 00: So Your Honor, it's Appendix 274, paragraph 111. [00:27:19] Speaker 00: So there is plenty of evidence in the record. [00:27:22] Speaker 00: So when you have that motivation, then the baker simply tells you how you manipulate the equation to get to the trip point, right? [00:27:29] Speaker 00: How do you make it insensitive? [00:27:31] Speaker 00: And we have testimony from their own expert on this issue. [00:27:34] Speaker 00: And I want to point the court to that. [00:27:36] Speaker 00: And that's at appendix 1322 to 1323. [00:27:38] Speaker 00: Their own expert said one of scale would know how to manipulate this equation. [00:27:43] Speaker 02: And he said, second. [00:27:44] Speaker 02: Okay, so I just got to 1322. [00:27:46] Speaker 02: What line should it be? [00:27:48] Speaker 00: Sure, Your Honor. [00:27:49] Speaker 00: It's line 55. [00:27:50] Speaker 00: Okay. [00:27:52] Speaker 00: Or page 55, sorry, line 22. [00:27:54] Speaker 02: Got it. [00:27:56] Speaker 00: And it goes on to 56 line 9. [00:28:00] Speaker 00: And you'll see there, their expert agreed that one of skill had the requisite skill set to manipulate. [00:28:05] Speaker 00: And he said, God help them if they don't know that. [00:28:08] Speaker 00: So there is plenty of evidence in the record that supports the board's obviousness finding on this trip point limitation. [00:28:16] Speaker 00: And the board properly looked at the homework problem. [00:28:19] Speaker 00: It was plainly cited to indicate that. [00:28:22] Speaker 02: Do you think that you need the homework problem? [00:28:24] Speaker 00: No, we don't, Your Honor. [00:28:25] Speaker 00: Unless the court has any other questions, we request the court inform. [00:28:29] Speaker 03: Okay, thank you, Mr. Modi. [00:28:35] Speaker 03: Mr. Kaufman, you have some rebuttal time. [00:28:38] Speaker 01: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:28:53] Speaker 01: May it please the Court. [00:28:54] Speaker 01: I'm going to go in reverse order and respond just briefly to the Lovett point that was made by Mr. Modi. [00:29:03] Speaker 01: I'd note that the board did not rely on Lovett or even mention Lovett in the final writ decision. [00:29:08] Speaker 01: I'd also note that Samsung, in its brief to this court, mentioned Lovett a grand total of once. [00:29:14] Speaker 01: It's footnote four on page 24. [00:29:17] Speaker 01: There's no explanation of any [00:29:21] Speaker 01: any way that Lovett supports the board's decision. [00:29:23] Speaker 01: They simply referenced it in passing as a footnote. [00:29:26] Speaker 02: So to the extent that it is in, I think I read about it. [00:29:29] Speaker 02: Please tell me if I'm wrong. [00:29:30] Speaker 02: But I thought I read about it in Mr. Baker's declaration. [00:29:34] Speaker 01: There is some discussion of Lovett not as a reference, but just as sort of background for a person of skill in the art in Dr. Baker's declaration. [00:29:44] Speaker 02: I thought it also was discussed during the discussion of the motivation to combine [00:29:48] Speaker 01: That's the part of his discussion that references Lovett, but it was not relied upon. [00:29:54] Speaker 01: There were no factual findings about it by the board. [00:29:57] Speaker 01: The board did not cite it or discuss it in the final written decision. [00:30:00] Speaker 01: And the sum total of their discussion of it in their brief to this court is footnote four, which is a sentence saying that Lovett was there. [00:30:08] Speaker 02: Your point is that to the extent Lovett's relied on to teach a claim element, there is no reliance by the board on that. [00:30:16] Speaker 01: Correct. [00:30:16] Speaker 01: And it wasn't even relied on by Samsung to teach a claimed element, Your Honor. [00:30:21] Speaker 01: It was simply provided as sort of evidence of the state of the art and the skill in the art, but not to teach anything specific in the claims. [00:30:29] Speaker 01: It's not Park plus Baker plus Lovett. [00:30:31] Speaker 01: It's just Park plus Baker. [00:30:38] Speaker 01: Turning, Your Honors, to the claim construction point. [00:30:44] Speaker 01: To the extent that there's any confusion as to what we're saying the construction is, it is what we say on page 1075. [00:30:51] Speaker 01: That's what we're relying on. [00:30:52] Speaker 01: And we think that the prosecution history does, in fact, support that particular construction. [00:31:01] Speaker 01: Mr. Modi made reference to the footnote in the prosecution history that says we're not limiting it to a specific structure. [00:31:09] Speaker 01: And certainly, we're not limiting it to the structure shown in Figure 5. [00:31:13] Speaker 01: They weren't saying that the claim was limited to the structure shown in Figure 5, but they still were distinguishing [00:31:20] Speaker 01: Structures that do what we do from structures that don't which is the prior art figure 3a and which is the prior art figure to Sukukawa and so We would submit that the the prosecution history does provide a basis for the construction Unless there are any further questions. [00:31:39] Speaker 03: Thank you Reversal we thank both counsel the case is taken under submission and