[00:00:01] Speaker 05:
We will hear argument in case number 2015-96 and related cases, ARIS solutions against real-time adaptive streaming.

[00:00:09] Speaker 05:
Mr. Cordell, you may begin whenever you're ready.

[00:00:15] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:00:15] Speaker 00:
May it please the court, Ruffin Cordell, for the DISH appellants.

[00:00:23] Speaker 00:
The Supreme Court in Thrive held that the IPR process consists of two distinct phases.

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The institution phase followed by a, quote, thorough going determination of a patent's validity.

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The statute also tells us that institution carries two critical characteristics.

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It is final and unappealable.

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Thrive tells us what unappealable means, but this is the first opportunity for the court to confront what final actually means.

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Now, the statute also tells us that the institution phase is cabined in two particular ways.

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First, it tells us what issues are to be considered at the institution phase.

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But importantly, the statute limits the time for the institution phase.

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Section 314B clearly limits the institution phase to three months following the patent owner's preliminary response or POPR or the time therefore.

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The rules permit

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a two-week reconsideration period, and that rule was the subject of actual rulemaking by the agency.

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It was published, it was commented upon, and it was implemented.

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That sets forth the time period for the institution phase.

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Thrive then tells us that once the institution phase is complete, that we are to move on, that it is in the rear-view mirror, if you will, and we need to proceed

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with the thoroughgoing process and reach a final determination about the patent's validity.

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And that's exactly what happened in this case.

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The board made a decision about institutions, considered all of the arguments and evidence presented by the parties with respect to the institution issues, and decided to institute the IPR.

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The parties then engaged in the process that late Justice Ginsburg describes in the Thrive opinion where

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evidence was deduced and resources were expended and the agency committed significant time and effort to resolution the patent validity.

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And then just days before the final written decision was to emerge, we are told that the agency is now reconsidering its institution decision and reversing it.

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The ills that come from this kind of process are profound.

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If you think about it, if the board wanted to,

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it could ensure that no appellate review of any decision upholding a patent's validity ever occurs.

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Because as the thoroughgoing process proceeds, if the board were to decide that a patent's validity should be upheld, it could avoid a final written decision and simply reconsider its institution decision.

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Obviously, that is not the kind of result that

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we want as a bar, as a patent system, as a court, or as a society.

[00:03:23] Speaker 05:
So those would have different legal consequences as a result of the estoppel provisions, right?

[00:03:31] Speaker 00:
They would, Your Honor.

[00:03:32] Speaker 00:
That's an excellent point.

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However, again, the resource commitment that Congress talked about in the IPR process would be wasted.

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Justice Ginsburg's opinion

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does a really good job of elucidating exactly the goals of the IPR process.

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And the estoppel is a price to be paid by the challenger, if you will, but one that, assumingly, they had rationalized at the outset before choosing to file the case.

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The finality of the IPR decision is one that prior cases

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and prior decisions that this court has yet to confront.

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So it is true that there are decisions, such as the Medtronic decision, where the board was not permitted, but the board did go back and reconsider its institution decision.

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And we see that in several cases.

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However, none of those did the appellant confront or really present to the court this issue about the finality of the institution phase.

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And the idea that when Congress said final and unappealable, those are two distinct characteristics.

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And the finality of that decision binds not only all of us in the appeals process, as Justice Ginsburg made clear, but also binds the board.

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That once the board makes that decision on institution, it is to proceed to the thoroughgoing process resulting in a final written decision.

[00:05:12] Speaker 00:
SAS made that very clear as well, that the idea here is that once institution is decided by the board, that the next step in the process is that thorough doing evaluation resulting in final written decision.

[00:05:29] Speaker 04:
Mr. Cordell, this is Judge Shen.

[00:05:32] Speaker 04:
I guess you're saying that even if during the pendency of an IPR proceeding, the patent board were to discover that

[00:05:40] Speaker 04:
the petitioner had lied about something in the contents of its petition and the board had relied on that fraud, that lie in the petition, the board would have no power, discretion, authority to revisit the institution decision during the pendency of the proceeding.

[00:06:04] Speaker 04:
Is that right?

[00:06:08] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

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I think the answer is yes.

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That, in fact, the Supreme Court tells us that despite whatever ills occurred in the institution phase, that that is behind us and we are to proceed to a final written decision.

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It's a runaway train to the final written decision.

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I think that's right.

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I think that, you know, I can imagine that the board may find different ways to deal with that situation, but

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that what they can't do is to point back to institution and simply undo what we've done.

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And in this case, it actually has several profound facts.

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Eris has waived its oral argument here, but the jointer of Eris was undermined by the board because they said that, well, essentially, this never should have been instituted in the first place.

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And even though the jointer statute tells us that we are not to consider time bar issues,

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We're going to undo the ARS Joinder simply because we're going to get into a time machine and go back and undo the institution decision.

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There's really no support for that anywhere.

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There's no support in the case law.

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There's no support in the statute.

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And yes, that's exactly what was done.

[00:07:25] Speaker 04:
What's your best quotable quote from the Thrive decision that you think we should focus on and should inform us that,

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There's no looking back after the institution decision is made and even if the institution decision was premised on a completely incorrect understanding of the facts as they existed at that time or a complete misunderstanding of the law, the patent board nevertheless is without authority to revisit that and has to go all the way to final judgment regardless.

[00:08:05] Speaker 00:
I would point to the Justice Ginsburg's, late Justice Ginsburg's opinion, and I'm looking for the, I guess it's at 1374, where she discusses the merits of allowing any appeal of a 13B determination.

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And she says allowing 13B appeals would tug against that objective, the objective being Congress's intent to weed out bad patents.

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And she specifically talks about wasting the resources spent resolving patentability and leaving bad patents unenforceable.

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And she specifically says a successful 13B appeal would terminate in vacatur of the agency's decision.

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In lieu of enabling judicial review of patentability, vacatur would unwind the agency's merits decision.

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So she clearly is focused on the idea that,

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Once we've made the decision to institute, we are in the thorough going process and we need to see that through.

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She tweets it as a gating issue and once that gating issue is surpassed, that we are to proceed all the way through.

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I'm looking, Your Honor, back to the opinion.

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I also am drawn to the quote at 1376

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where she discusses whether or not there can be review of the thorough going process.

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And she specifically points back to Cuso and says that the Supreme Court's decision in Cuso explained that, quote, nothing in 314D or Cuso withdraws our power to ensure that an inter-party's review proceeds in accordance with the law's demand.

[00:10:04] Speaker 00:
And then she said, that reviewability holding is inapplicable here for click-to-call appeal challenges, not the manner in which the agency's review proceeds once instituted, but whether the agency should have instituted review at all.

[00:10:18] Speaker 00:
So she is clearly distinguishing the institution decision from how the IPR proceeds.

[00:10:27] Speaker 05:
Mr. Cordell, you're into your rebuttal time now, if my colleagues have no further questions at the moment.

[00:10:34] Speaker 05:
Why don't you save the remaining time for a vote?

[00:10:37] Speaker 00:
I will.

[00:10:37] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:10:41] Speaker 05:
And Mr. Wang?

[00:10:45] Speaker 06:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the court, Philip Wang, for appellee real time.

[00:10:53] Speaker 06:
During my friend's argument, I don't think I heard any dispute about the board's termination order not being a decision to not institute

[00:11:04] Speaker 06:
And it clearly is a decision not to institute for several reasons.

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The board's order repeatedly says that it's reconsidering its decision to institute and then deciding not to institute the entire basis.

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of the board's order was about applying the Section 315B time bar, which is the exact issue that was discussed before institution in the papers there.

[00:11:33] Speaker 06:
And the board found that all petitioners were time barred under Section 315B and decided not to institute.

[00:11:40] Speaker 06:
And because of that fact, because the board's order was a decision to not institute, this court's holdings in GTNX, Medtronic, and bio-delivery confirm that there's no jurisdiction to hear this appeal.

[00:11:56] Speaker 01:
Mr. Wang, this is Judge Stoll.

[00:12:00] Speaker 01:
What about the alternative petition for rid of mandamus?

[00:12:04] Speaker 01:
Do you agree that we have jurisdiction to consider that?

[00:12:08] Speaker 01:
I mean, the burden is very high, but we have jurisdiction to consider it, right?

[00:12:13] Speaker 06:
Thank you, Judge.

[00:12:15] Speaker 06:
So I think that question was discussed at length at the recent Mylan oral argument, and I agree with what the parties seem to agree in that argument, which this court would have jurisdiction to decide the mandamus question.

[00:12:33] Speaker 06:
I think that this is a very poor case

[00:12:37] Speaker 06:
mandate mis-release.

[00:12:40] Speaker 01:
Okay, thank you.

[00:12:41] Speaker 05:
Why is that?

[00:12:42] Speaker 05:
Why is it a poor case for mandate mis-release?

[00:12:45] Speaker 05:
If I didn't, I guess a question generally, but part of it would be Mr. Cordell's reference to, as I understood it and I may have misunderstood it, regulatory time limits on reconsidering institutions.

[00:13:06] Speaker 06:
It would be a poor vehicle, Your Honor, because I think the exact issue was addressed in the GTNX case, by your opinion, where you found that there cannot be a clear and disputable right to have an IPR instituted or to have an IPR continue, which is the relief that appellants are

[00:13:34] Speaker 06:
asking for.

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Furthermore, I think it's fair noting that the same parties are currently disputing the validity of the same patent in ongoing district court proceedings.

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We have a trial scheduled for August.

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And then also, there was an ex parte re-exam that appeared to be a carbon copy of the IPR petition that was terminated that is currently ongoing.

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at the PTO.

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And so there can be no clear and unmistakable right to have an IPR on a time bar petition in addition to district court proceedings and an ex parte reexam.

[00:14:20] Speaker 06:
And I would also note, Your Honor, that there was nothing procedurally unfair about the timing or the facts that came about in this case.

[00:14:32] Speaker 06:
The patent owner, we raised the time bar issue about six months after the institution decision where the petitioners had made any other filing immediately after the GoPro guidance came out from the director.

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And we asked as the patent owner, we asked petitioners to agree to stay all deadlines

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because we thought we had a very strong argument that if all petitioners were time-barred and to agree to have that be decided.

[00:15:04] Speaker 06:
And petitioners refused our request and plowed ahead, but the issue was brief, so it was certainly no surprise.

[00:15:13] Speaker 06:
It took about four months

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for the parties to do the briefing or to issue its ruling.

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And we also asked to postpone the oral argument, if we could please get a ruling on this dispositive issue.

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And again, petitioners refused, and they wanted to plow ahead.

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And so we don't think that it's quite

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above board to plow ahead and refuse our request to stay proceeding if they then complain about wasting resources or that the board's order came too late when everyone knew that this is being disputed.

[00:16:00] Speaker 04:
Mr. Wang, there won't be any estoppel concerns

[00:16:04] Speaker 04:
or errors in the district court litigation, is that right?

[00:16:08] Speaker 06:
That's exactly correct, Judge Henn.

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There are no estoppel concerns whatsoever for the district court litigation.

[00:16:19] Speaker 06:
I think that they're going to raise, and they are raising the same grounds, the same prior art, the same arguments, and nor are there any

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to the PTO ex parte re-exam that is also ongoing.

[00:16:40] Speaker 04:
There's a re-exam ongoing?

[00:16:43] Speaker 06:
Yes, yes.

[00:16:43] Speaker 06:
There was a third-party ex parte re-exam filed with the PTO, and it's currently ongoing.

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application was anonymous, but I can represent that the grounds and the prior art and the declaration that was submitted appears to be a carbon copy of the IPR petition at issue, the one that was terminated.

[00:17:17] Speaker 06:
I mentioned those things because I think it goes directly to Judge Stoll's point about mandamus relief.

[00:17:23] Speaker 06:
And here, where we think that the board got the right outcome, they followed the right procedure, a fair procedure, and they allowed both Eris and Sling to each submit 10-page briefs, supplemental briefs about the time bar issue, and then decided this issue fairly, where there's no

[00:17:43] Speaker 06:
Procedural unfairness, no estoppel, as your Honor notes, no substantive unfairness, that there can't be clear and undisputable right for the relief that they're seeking, and to get an IPR on top of everything else.

[00:18:01] Speaker 06:
Going back briefly to my initial point, if we agree that the

[00:18:07] Speaker 06:
order was a decision to not institute, then this court's precedents in GTNX and Medtronic and bio-delivery directly apply and they confirm that there's no jurisdiction for this appeal.

[00:18:28] Speaker 06:
Even some of the language from those cases is directly applicable and very instructive.

[00:18:34] Speaker 06:
In GTNX, for example, Judge Toronto wrote that it would be, quote, strained to describe the termination orders as anything but a determination whether to institute.

[00:18:46] Speaker 05:
Did that case or Medtronic address a question about regulatory time limits on reconsideration of institution?

[00:18:58] Speaker 06:
None of them addressed that issue directly, but bio-delivery is very instructive because the reconsideration of the institution decision occurred nearly four years after the institution decision because it followed a final written decision and a remand back from the federal circuit.

[00:19:20] Speaker 06:
So I don't think it got into the details of the exact timings, but

[00:19:26] Speaker 06:
I mean, four years, the fact of that.

[00:19:31] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry, you said bio-delivery, is that right?

[00:19:34] Speaker 04:
Or are you referring to a different case?

[00:19:36] Speaker 06:
I believe it was bio-delivery.

[00:19:41] Speaker 06:
Okay.

[00:19:44] Speaker 06:
And of course, bio-delivery

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Medtronic and GTNX, they repeatedly state the same propositions about how the board has an inherent right to reconsider its decisions.

[00:20:00] Speaker 06:
And Medtronic is also instructive at how that it would be strange to hold that a decision to institute review would not be reviewable, but the reconsideration of that decision

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would be reviewable, which would be appellant's position.

[00:20:20] Speaker 06:
Another point, Your Honor, is that during my friend Mr. Cordell's argument, it occurred to me another even more egregious example that would follow from his rule.

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If the board wrote an institution

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and at the very end of it had a typographical error and said instituted or institution denied and meant the other.

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It would have no discretion to correct that typographical error and it would have to go forward.

[00:20:59] Speaker 06:
If I could wrap up just by making one point, Your Honors, which is we think that

[00:21:06] Speaker 06:
Thrive is directly applicable to the jurisdictional issue here and confirms that there is no jurisdiction to hear this appeal.

[00:21:15] Speaker 06:
But the underlying facts of the IPRs between this case and Thrive are in some ways reversed.

[00:21:24] Speaker 06:
In Thrive, the IPR, the board incorrectly applied Section 315B and instituted review on an untimely petition.

[00:21:34] Speaker 06:
Here, the board initially did the same thing,

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But to its credit, after full briefing, it reconsidered that decision and analyzed Section 315B correctly and then terminated the IPR.

[00:21:50] Speaker 06:
The appellants here seek to undo the board's decision and force them to apply Section 315B incorrectly.

[00:21:59] Speaker 05:
There is... I think your time elapsed and I think you're going over old ground now.

[00:22:07] Speaker 05:
Should we hear from Mr. Foreman?

[00:22:10] Speaker 06:
Yes.

[00:22:11] Speaker 06:
Thank you.

[00:22:11] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:22:17] Speaker 02:
May it please the court?

[00:22:19] Speaker 02:
This court lacks jurisdiction to hear this appeal from a board decision terminating an IPR due to the 315B time bar.

[00:22:28] Speaker 02:
The point I wanted to focus on was the appellant's argument that

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final in 314D has some special meaning that precludes reconsideration.

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Appellants claim that that issue has not been resolved by this court.

[00:22:48] Speaker 02:
But if you look at both the GTNX and Medtronic cases, there's language in there that, in fact, does resolve that issue.

[00:22:58] Speaker 02:
In GTNX, the court said that nothing in the statute

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the regulations applicable here, clearly deprives the board of the default authority to reconsider its own decisions.

[00:23:10] Speaker 02:
That quote appears in Medtronic as well.

[00:23:13] Speaker 02:
So the court has already squarely addressed the issue and found that.

[00:23:19] Speaker 05:
What do you think the word final is doing in 314?

[00:23:27] Speaker 05:
What work does it do?

[00:23:29] Speaker 02:
I think that, you know, it's not clear that it really has a separate meaning in the statute.

[00:23:39] Speaker 02:
I would look at this course, the panel decision in Quozo, which appellants quote on page 20 of their opening brief where it says that section 314 provides that the decision is both non-appealable and final, i.e.

[00:23:55] Speaker 02:
not subject to further review.

[00:23:57] Speaker 02:
So I would agree with that statement that non-appealable and final means not subject to further review.

[00:24:03] Speaker 05:
And I think final also captures... Do I understand that the government's position is that while it's not subject to 319 review, it is subject to mandamus review, though the standards for mandamus are extremely high?

[00:24:24] Speaker 02:
Correct.

[00:24:25] Speaker 02:
We've taken the position in prior cases, and I think it was the Mylan case was raised, that this court has the ability to decide the mandamus issue.

[00:24:34] Speaker 02:
I think that it would be incredibly hard in a case like this, where no one has a right to an IPR.

[00:24:45] Speaker 02:
The institution of IPR is always a discretionary decision.

[00:24:48] Speaker 02:
There's no situation in which the director is

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forced to institute an IPR, which is different than something such as re-exam.

[00:24:59] Speaker 02:
So outside of a constitutional issue, which was the case in Milan, I think it would be very hard to show that there is a clear and unmistakable right to relief under mandamus.

[00:25:14] Speaker 02:
But I think that the final

[00:25:17] Speaker 02:
in final non-appealable captures collateral challenges.

[00:25:21] Speaker 02:
For example, you know, like an APA district court case, which is not necessarily an appeal, but would still be precluded under the statute.

[00:25:30] Speaker 02:
So I think however you read final, it can't be read to mean that the institution decision is not subject to any reconsideration because that would be

[00:25:43] Speaker 05:
in an extreme position that would, you know, there are lots of... Can you clarify something for me?

[00:25:48] Speaker 05:
And I thought I heard Mr. Cardell say that there was, put aside the statute, that there's a regulation that limits the time within which reconsideration of institution may be.

[00:26:03] Speaker 05:
Can you clarify that?

[00:26:05] Speaker 02:
Sure.

[00:26:06] Speaker 02:
There's 37 CFR 42.71D sets time limits

[00:26:13] Speaker 02:
on request for reconsideration as a matter of right.

[00:26:16] Speaker 02:
But it does not bar the board from allowing a later request for reconsideration.

[00:26:22] Speaker 02:
And I believe the court explained that in this GTNX decision.

[00:26:26] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:26:28] Speaker 02:
So I don't think that time limit precludes the court's reconsideration here.

[00:26:34] Speaker 02:
And I think that the court's Tokyo Kikai case, which

[00:26:40] Speaker 02:
discusses the general authority of an agency to reconsider its decisions just as reconsideration has to happen in, quote unquote, a reasonable amount of time after the initial decision.

[00:26:52] Speaker 02:
And I think that any time, if the board is reconsidering its decision prior to issuing a final written decision, that certainly qualifies as a reasonable time.

[00:27:07] Speaker 02:
I'm happy to answer any questions, but I don't have anything for you.

[00:27:11] Speaker 05:
Okay.

[00:27:12] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Mr. Foreman and Mr. Cordell.

[00:27:16] Speaker 05:
You have rebuttal time.

[00:27:18] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:27:19] Speaker 00:
Again, Ruffin Cordell for the Dish and Sling appellate.

[00:27:26] Speaker 00:
I'd first like to address Mr. Lang's point that the board's order here was a reconsideration of institution.

[00:27:35] Speaker 00:
We don't need to quibble about the language, but just to be precise,

[00:27:38] Speaker 00:
What the board did here was simply terminate the proceeding.

[00:27:43] Speaker 00:
They didn't reconsider their institution decision.

[00:27:45] Speaker 00:
They terminated the proceeding.

[00:27:47] Speaker 00:
And under Arthrex, this court does have jurisdiction to decide whether that termination was correct or incorrect.

[00:27:54] Speaker 05:
And so that gets us back to... Just so we're clear, am I misremembering?

[00:28:01] Speaker 05:
The Arthrex termination was under 42.73, in which there's actually an adverse judgment.

[00:28:06] Speaker 05:
This is under the more general 42.72, which doesn't talk about anything like a judgment.

[00:28:13] Speaker 05:
It's just proceeding over.

[00:28:15] Speaker 05:
And I thought the same, both Medtronic and earlier GTNX made clear that this kind of 42.72 termination by reconsidering the institution is the same thing as for any kind of reviewability purposes.

[00:28:35] Speaker 05:
a non-institution in the first instance?

[00:28:38] Speaker 00:
Again, Your Honor, the notion that there is a non-institution available is something we dispute.

[00:28:45] Speaker 00:
We think that they made the decision to institute and therefore when they terminated, while not, I agree with you, it's not on all fours of the orthoracts.

[00:28:54] Speaker 00:
The point is the termination did in fact end the proceedings.

[00:28:58] Speaker 00:
And under the APA, we still have the ability to challenge that and would do so because it is outside of not only the regulatory framework that Your Honor identified, but the statute.

[00:29:10] Speaker 00:
The statute says three months.

[00:29:11] Speaker 00:
It doesn't say may.

[00:29:14] Speaker 00:
It doesn't say might.

[00:29:15] Speaker 00:
It says it shall, that the decision on institution shall occur within three months of the POPR.

[00:29:22] Speaker 00:
The regulation does in fact have two periods, so I probably should have elucidated both.

[00:29:29] Speaker 00:
It's either 14 days from a decision to institute or 30 days from a decision not to institute.

[00:29:36] Speaker 00:
So these are clearly well thought out time periods.

[00:29:40] Speaker 00:
This is 37 CFR 4271.

[00:29:43] Speaker 00:
And again, with the subject of actual rulemaking by the office where people commented and it was adopted and everybody agreed.

[00:29:51] Speaker 00:
I heard Mr. Foreman say, well, that's only for reconsideration as a matter of right.

[00:29:57] Speaker 00:
But again, within the statutory framework, and he cites the Tokyo case, and that's the correct one, because the Tokyo case tells us that it has to be reasonable.

[00:30:07] Speaker 00:
And certainly the statute tells us in the first instance, under Chevron step one, that when they put a time limit into the statute, it is eminently reasonable.

[00:30:16] Speaker 00:
And that three-month time limit is something that they were nowhere near.

[00:30:20] Speaker 00:
Mr. Foreman suggested that under Tokyo, we could wait until the week before the final written decision.

[00:30:25] Speaker 00:
Well, there really is no time period beyond the final written decision.

[00:30:29] Speaker 00:
So I don't think that's a fair reading of Tokyo.

[00:30:32] Speaker 00:
Tokyo tells us that those time limits for reconsideration have to be reasonable.

[00:30:37] Speaker 00:
There's no showing here that waiting until just days before the final written decision was in any way reasonable.

[00:30:44] Speaker 00:
Mr. Wang talked about the GoPro decision and that when they saw the GoPro decision,

[00:30:49] Speaker 00:
They left into action and requested that we immediately concede the IPR.

[00:30:55] Speaker 00:
But I'd have a couple of responses.

[00:30:56] Speaker 00:
First, the board's own rules in SOP 2 make it clear that POP panels, which is what the GoPro decision came from, a pop panel, only describe prospective rules for the conduct of IPRs.

[00:31:13] Speaker 00:
And so there was no reason for us to treat it in any other fashion.

[00:31:18] Speaker 00:
And then secondly, of course,

[00:31:19] Speaker 00:
The GoPro decision came long after institution and the entirety of the institution phase.

[00:31:25] Speaker 00:
And the suggestion that somehow that would then retroactively change what happened at institution is something that simply can't be.

[00:31:34] Speaker 00:
With respect to bio-delivery, it is true that there was a period of time between the initial decisions and several appeals and the final determination in bio-delivery.

[00:31:46] Speaker 00:
However, I do dispute that in any of these decisions, bio-delivery, GTNX, Medtronic, that this finality issue was confronted.

[00:31:57] Speaker 00:
General discussion about it, but at no time was this issue actually squarely raised or dealt with in any of the decisions.

[00:32:06] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Mr. Cordell.

[00:32:08] Speaker 05:
And to the other council, the case is submitted.

[00:32:12] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Ron.

[00:32:16] Speaker 03:
The court will pause momentarily to set up for the law clerk admission.

[00:32:27] Speaker 04:
Hello, good morning.

[00:32:28] Speaker 04:
This is Judge Chen.

[00:32:30] Speaker 04:
And I believe on schedule this morning is a motion from Judge Toronto.

[00:32:36] Speaker 04:
Judge Toronto?

[00:32:37] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:32:39] Speaker 05:
I move the admission of Elias Kim.

[00:32:41] Speaker 05:
who is a member of the bar and is in good standing with the highest court of the District of Columbia.

[00:32:48] Speaker 05:
I have knowledge of his credentials and am satisfied that he possesses the necessary qualifications.

[00:32:55] Speaker 05:
I know this because Elias worked with me in 2019 through 2020 as a law clerk.

[00:33:02] Speaker 05:
In that capacity, he was scholarly, very broadly knowledgeable, resourceful, energetic, diligent, creative,

[00:33:11] Speaker 05:
and taxful and a wonderful colleague to me and his co-clerks to boot.

[00:33:18] Speaker 05:
I believe that the bar and our legal institutions will be enhanced by his bright promising career.

[00:33:25] Speaker 05:
I urge you to grant the motion.

[00:33:30] Speaker 04:
Hmm, very compelling.

[00:33:32] Speaker 04:
Judge Stoll, what say you?

[00:33:35] Speaker 01:
Boy, I don't know how we could deny that motion.

[00:33:37] Speaker 01:
That sounds very convincing.

[00:33:42] Speaker 01:
I support the motion.

[00:33:43] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:33:44] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:33:45] Speaker 04:
So I guess now it all comes down to me.

[00:33:49] Speaker 04:
Well, I unfortunately didn't get to know Mr. Kim as well as I would have liked due to the circumstances of this past year's pandemic.

[00:34:01] Speaker 04:
But on the strength of Judge Toronto's motion and my knowledge of all of Judge Toronto's prior

[00:34:12] Speaker 04:
clerks is being tip-topped, I happily also support the motion, and the motion is granted.

[00:34:19] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:34:23] Speaker 03:
I will now administer the oath.

[00:34:26] Speaker 03:
Please rise and raise your right hand.

[00:34:31] Speaker 03:
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will comport yourself as an attorney and counselor of this court, uprightly and according to law, and that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America?

[00:34:42] Speaker 00:
I do.

[00:34:43] Speaker 03:
Welcome to the bar of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

[00:34:48] Speaker 06:
Thank you very much.

[00:34:51] Speaker 05:
Congratulations, Elias, and that completes our session for this morning.

[00:34:57] Speaker 05:
The Court stands in recess, or adjourned.

[00:35:03] Speaker 03:
The Honorable Court is adjourned from day to day.