[00:00:00] Speaker 05: 1286, CCS Technologies versus. [00:00:55] Speaker 05: I think we're ready whenever you are. [00:00:57] Speaker 05: Good morning, Mr. Quinn. [00:01:11] Speaker 03: Thank you, Chief Judge Probst, and may it please the Court. [00:01:14] Speaker 03: John O'Quinn on behalf of Corning. [00:01:15] Speaker 01: Mr. O'Quinn, both sides, I just want to know. [00:01:19] Speaker 01: I would agree, independent three. [00:01:22] Speaker 01: Independent Claim 3 of the 600 patent is illustrative? [00:01:26] Speaker 03: Yes. [00:01:28] Speaker 01: I assume you're a close counsel agreement. [00:01:30] Speaker 03: Yes, it's illustrative and there are only two claims at issue with the 600 patent, Claim 3, Claim 4. [00:01:36] Speaker 04: Claim 4 has the further requirement not just that some of the colors of the fibers remain the same, but that all the colors of the fibers remain the same. [00:01:48] Speaker 04: And the board's overbroad construction of the term optical interconnection module renders that term devoid of sensible meaning because under the board's construction, any device that has an optical fiber cable plugged into it somewhere would be treated as an optical interconnection module. [00:02:08] Speaker 04: That defies common sense. [00:02:10] Speaker 04: And it is divorced from the description of optical interconnection modules found in the specification, as well as the meaning found in the technical dictionary used in this field, as well as the very purpose of the patent intervention, which is to make it. [00:02:24] Speaker 00: Help me understand what's going on here. [00:02:26] Speaker 00: As I understand it, there's a limitation on the length of a fiber optic cable. [00:02:35] Speaker 00: and that as a result of that, you have modules which would connect two strands of cable together, right? [00:02:46] Speaker 04: That's right. [00:02:47] Speaker 04: Principally right, Judge Dyke. [00:02:48] Speaker 04: The purpose of having a module can vary from system to system. [00:02:52] Speaker 04: Sometimes it is to [00:02:53] Speaker 04: to break out the fibers into individual fibers. [00:02:56] Speaker 04: Sometimes, as here, it's to do pairwise flipping. [00:02:59] Speaker 04: But yes, you have a module that serves where the module itself is doing the optical interconnecting between systems. [00:03:07] Speaker 00: OK, but you also could have a module [00:03:09] Speaker 00: that all fiber optic needs to be connected to an electrical device such as a computer, right? [00:03:15] Speaker 00: You could have one module next to one computer and then a fiber optic connection to another module which is electrically connected to another computer, right? [00:03:27] Speaker 04: Well, you could have a module. [00:03:32] Speaker 04: If you're going to have an [00:03:33] Speaker 04: optical interconnection module, then the module itself needs to be optically interconnecting systems. [00:03:39] Speaker 04: Now, it may be that there are other types of modules. [00:03:41] Speaker 00: What I'm saying is you can have the optical connection between the two modules. [00:03:46] Speaker 00: That could be, one module could be in New York, one could be in Washington. [00:03:50] Speaker 00: And at the end of the day, each module connects to a computer, has an electrical connection to the computer. [00:03:57] Speaker 00: So the module can serve that function, too, right? [00:04:00] Speaker 04: Well, Judge Dyke, respectfully, no, not in being an optical interconnection module. [00:04:05] Speaker 00: And indeed, if you look, for example, at a... But in terms of the technology, that could be function of the module connecting [00:04:14] Speaker 00: to an electrical device, right? [00:04:17] Speaker 00: You have the optical cable coming in to the module and then it connects at the other end to the electrical device. [00:04:24] Speaker 00: Is that true? [00:04:27] Speaker 04: Not for an optical interconnection module if I'm understanding your question correctly. [00:04:33] Speaker 04: For example, an electro-optical interconnection module, which is exactly what's described in Eichenberger. [00:04:39] Speaker 00: Yeah, but it seems like terminology. [00:04:40] Speaker 00: The question is whether these claims encompass both of those. [00:04:47] Speaker 00: That is a module that's used to connect an electrical device and a module that's used to connect one optical cable to another optical [00:04:55] Speaker 04: Well, I think the claims here, Judge Dyke, are using the term optical interconnection module in its plain sense, the same sense that's found in the only dictionary at issue in this case, the fiber optic standard dictionary, which describes it as a housing that holds fiber optic splices, fiber optic connectors, and fiber optic couplers used to distribute signals on incoming fiber optic cables to outgoing fiber optic cables by means of connectors. [00:05:22] Speaker 04: And indeed, every single example that you find in the specification, every picture, every description, is one that is consistently using modules that are connecting optical ribbons and optical fiber connectors by an optical path. [00:05:39] Speaker 04: Now, I agree. [00:05:39] Speaker 04: At the end of a system, you have to have something other than optical interconnection modules in order to be able to do an optical to electrical transition. [00:05:49] Speaker 04: And that is what Eichenberger is disclosing. [00:05:52] Speaker 04: But as the testimony from our expert, for example, at appendix 628, Mr. Pearson explains, optical interconnection modules are modules that are going to be found in the middle of a network. [00:06:04] Speaker 04: And the whole point of this invention is to maintain polarity. [00:06:08] Speaker 00: That is to- That's the question, as to whether it means a module in the middle of a network to connect to fiber optic cables, or whether it also encompasses Engelberger's optical connection to an electrical device. [00:06:22] Speaker 04: Well, I agree. [00:06:23] Speaker 04: That is the question. [00:06:24] Speaker 04: And it really boils down to the board's overbroad claim construction. [00:06:30] Speaker 04: And I say it's overbroad because under the board's construction, any device that has an optical fiber plugged into it is going to meet the definition of optical fiber cable, excuse me, of optical interconnecting module. [00:06:44] Speaker 04: And the reason for that is that the board essentially treats the module [00:06:52] Speaker 04: as just having to have some optical interconnection somewhere within it. [00:06:56] Speaker 04: At our point, our consistent point from institution and in our patented response, is that it's the module itself that has to do the optical interconnecting. [00:07:08] Speaker 04: It's not enough that there is one or even several optical interconnections inside the module. [00:07:16] Speaker 04: It is that the module itself has to do the optical interconnecting. [00:07:20] Speaker 05: I realize analogies... I'm not sure what that means. [00:07:23] Speaker 04: Well, let me offer an analogy, and I realize analogies can be dangerous, but let me just try one. [00:07:30] Speaker 04: Imagine what you might think of as an electrical interconnection module. [00:07:35] Speaker 04: What would be a classic electrical interconnection module? [00:07:38] Speaker 04: A power strip, right? [00:07:40] Speaker 04: You have the plug on one end in order to go into the wall socket or into an extension cord or whatever. [00:07:47] Speaker 04: You then have the strip itself that distributes electricity to different outlets, and those things themselves can then have an electrical connection put to it. [00:07:55] Speaker 04: That would be an electrical interconnection module. [00:07:59] Speaker 04: But to take the analogy one step further, the way the board's done its construction here is it would say any device that has an electrical connection, in our case it's optical, but for my hypothetical electrical, would be an electrical interconnection device, so a television. [00:08:15] Speaker 04: a toaster would meet the definition of electrical interconnection module under my hypothetical, if you use the board's approach. [00:08:24] Speaker 00: And here, take a look. [00:08:25] Speaker 00: I don't think that's true. [00:08:26] Speaker 00: I understand the board to be saying the two modules have to be connected optically. [00:08:34] Speaker 00: And at the other end, they can be connected to something electrically. [00:08:38] Speaker 04: Well, what the board is saying, and I think if you look at appendix 10, excuse me, appendix 19, [00:08:45] Speaker 04: The board says, quote, Eichenberger describes fibers with an optical head 40 optically interconnecting to fibers from the ribbon. [00:08:56] Speaker 04: Therefore, Eichenberger teaches a module that forms an optical interconnection, end quote. [00:09:03] Speaker 04: So what it's saying is that you take Eichenberger module 10, which has the connector 40, [00:09:11] Speaker 04: And when you plug the optical ribbon into 40, that's making an optical interconnection. [00:09:19] Speaker 04: And that's what makes module 10 of Eichenberger, according to the board, an optical interconnection module. [00:09:27] Speaker 04: And that would be true whether it was plugged into a transceiver, which is what Eichenberger is, or if it was plugged into a cable box, or if it was plugged into anything. [00:09:37] Speaker 04: And that's what makes the definition here [00:09:40] Speaker 04: fundamentally over-broad. [00:09:43] Speaker 04: And, again, they have no answer. [00:09:45] Speaker 04: Pandoit has no answer to the standard dictionary definition, other than to say, oh, well, it's a dictionary and it's extrinsic. [00:09:52] Speaker 04: Well, Phillips doesn't say that you can't consider dictionary definitions. [00:09:56] Speaker 04: And there is nothing in the specification. [00:09:59] Speaker 05: Well, OK, I wanted to get to the specification. [00:10:01] Speaker 05: Because the board did cite the specification, I think, extensively in the figures and so forth. [00:10:07] Speaker 05: And you've so far talked about a dictionary and talked about, I think, some expert testimony. [00:10:11] Speaker 05: So we're in the specification. [00:10:13] Speaker 05: Do you go to support your construction? [00:10:16] Speaker 05: It seems to me we're just line drawing here about what is actually a module, right? [00:10:20] Speaker 04: What is an optical interconnection module? [00:10:24] Speaker 04: And I don't mean to quibble. [00:10:25] Speaker 04: It's just that the modifier, optical interconnection, goes to what the module is doing, what the module is. [00:10:31] Speaker 04: And I would say every single example, if you look at the abstract, which is on appendix 61, if you look at column 1, line 65, to column 2, line 20, which is in the summary of the invention, which you find on appendix 65, [00:10:50] Speaker 04: Every single example, and there are multiple examples in the detailed description as well, like on column 3, lines 32 to 35, every single example describes modules that are connecting optical ribbons on one end and optical fiber connectors on the other. [00:11:08] Speaker 04: And the only thing that they say in response is, oh, well, those optical fiber connectors don't actually have, in the illustrations, a fiber plugged into them. [00:11:17] Speaker 04: And that's because the term optical [00:11:19] Speaker 04: interconnection modules just being used in its plain ordinary sense. [00:11:22] Speaker 04: You don't need to show that the fibers are actually plugged in. [00:11:26] Speaker 04: If it's sitting on a shelf and there are no fibers that are plugged into it, it's still an optical interconnection module. [00:11:32] Speaker 04: Every single example has optical fiber connectors on one end and the connector for the optical ribbon on the other, which means it's an optical ribbon coming in on one end and it is optical fibers going out on the other. [00:11:46] Speaker 04: Using your toaster analogy, [00:11:49] Speaker 01: The PTAB construed optical interconnection module to require, quote, an optical interconnection within the module. [00:12:07] Speaker 01: So it's not just going in. [00:12:11] Speaker 01: It requires a connection within the module of some sort. [00:12:14] Speaker 04: I agree with that, Judge Wallach. [00:12:16] Speaker 04: And so maybe the toaster analogy doesn't work. [00:12:18] Speaker 04: Maybe the better analogy is the television, where you've got to put the plug into the back of the television. [00:12:23] Speaker 04: But I think that is exactly the same as putting the optical fiber plug into connector 40 of module 10 of Eichenberger. [00:12:35] Speaker 04: I'm happy to continue answering questions, or I'm happy to reserve the balance of my time. [00:12:40] Speaker 04: We'll hear from the other side. [00:12:41] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:12:42] Speaker 03: Thank you, Chief Judge Prost. [00:12:50] Speaker 01: I assume you agree, too, that claim three is illustrative. [00:12:57] Speaker 02: We do, Your Honor. [00:12:58] Speaker 02: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:12:59] Speaker 02: May it please the Court? [00:13:00] Speaker 02: There's a lot to unpack here, so maybe we can just start with the constructions and why we disagree. [00:13:06] Speaker 02: So I think what counsel is overlooking is that the board's construction was in two parts. [00:13:11] Speaker 02: It requires an optical connection within the module. [00:13:14] Speaker 02: That's the first part. [00:13:15] Speaker 02: That's at A10. [00:13:17] Speaker 02: But it also, of course, requires an optical interconnection. [00:13:20] Speaker 02: And that's A10 to A11. [00:13:22] Speaker 02: That's the part that I believe Corning is overlooking here, is that it does require that optical interconnection. [00:13:27] Speaker 02: And in fact, this two-part construction relied heavily upon what Corning argued in its patent-owner preliminary response. [00:13:34] Speaker 02: It didn't come up with this out of the blue. [00:13:35] Speaker 02: It actually was parsing language from their own construction. [00:13:39] Speaker 02: And in fact, the board goes, if we could just look at the claims, the plain language of the claims requires an optical interconnection module. [00:13:46] Speaker 02: So right there, we have to have an optical interconnection. [00:13:49] Speaker 02: That's what the board said. [00:13:51] Speaker 02: And then we can look at the spec, and it lines 49 through 51 in column two. [00:13:57] Speaker 02: The specification says the module 60 also includes an optical interconnection section having an optical connector. [00:14:04] Speaker 02: And then if we go a little further down, 57 to 60 in column two, it teaches that the optical interconnection section optically interconnects with fibers in ribbon 20. [00:14:14] Speaker 02: So that's the first part of the construction that Corning has omitted in his briefs and in his discussion now. [00:14:20] Speaker 02: The second part of that is that the optical connection within the module part, if you look at the specification, figure two, for example, and column three lines 20 through 24, that reinforces that concept. [00:14:34] Speaker 02: But here's the important part to understand. [00:14:36] Speaker 02: Claim three is very different from claim one. [00:14:38] Speaker 02: Claim three has to do with optical assemblies. [00:14:41] Speaker 02: And what claim three is concerned about is the maintaining polarity, the wiring between the first module and the second module on opposite ends. [00:14:50] Speaker 02: That's a crucial distinction. [00:14:51] Speaker 02: That is the purpose of the invention. [00:14:54] Speaker 02: There's a lot of discussion about the purpose of the invention, which I'll get to. [00:14:57] Speaker 02: But that is the purpose, is maintaining polarity. [00:14:59] Speaker 02: And in fact, that's exactly what we saw in Eichenberger. [00:15:02] Speaker 02: In fact, both parties seem to agree on that particular point, that both Eichenberger and the patent and claim three is concerned about maintaining polarity. [00:15:10] Speaker 02: That's why Eichenberger is so on point here. [00:15:13] Speaker 02: So let's talk a little bit about their construction. [00:15:16] Speaker 02: So optical interconnection module must connect [00:15:20] Speaker 02: incoming optical fiber to an upcoming optical fiber. [00:15:24] Speaker 02: So here's the problem with that. [00:15:26] Speaker 02: There is simply no basis for that in the specification of the claims. [00:15:31] Speaker 02: If you look at the plain claim language, there's nothing about outgoing fibers. [00:15:35] Speaker 02: If you look at the figures in the specification, there's no discussion about outgoing fibers. [00:15:39] Speaker 02: In fact, that's what compelled them in their briefing before the board to add in optical fibers coming out of the modules [00:15:47] Speaker 02: both below and even in the brief here, they were amending those figures to include those optical fibers outgoing. [00:15:54] Speaker 02: There's no trace of that in the figures in the patent. [00:15:57] Speaker 02: There's actually no discussion of outgoing fibers, period. [00:15:58] Speaker 01: Why would you maintain polarity if it wasn't outgoing? [00:16:03] Speaker 02: So they're saying that it has to be an outgoing optical fiber connection. [00:16:07] Speaker 02: The claim is agnostic to that. [00:16:09] Speaker 02: Claim three doesn't discuss that. [00:16:11] Speaker 02: And Judge Dyke, you picked up on this exactly. [00:16:13] Speaker 02: Ultimately, there is some sort of electrical device. [00:16:15] Speaker 02: It could be a computer server. [00:16:17] Speaker 02: computers. [00:16:18] Speaker 02: Remember, this is in a LAN environment. [00:16:20] Speaker 01: But answer my question. [00:16:22] Speaker 01: Why would you have to maintain polarity of the incoming device if there's no outgoing optical? [00:16:31] Speaker 02: Oh, there's something outgoing. [00:16:32] Speaker 02: These don't exist in a vacuum. [00:16:34] Speaker 02: What they're arguing is that it has to be outgoing optical fibers. [00:16:37] Speaker 02: So in other words, these two modules with the stuff in the middle, they can be connected to all sorts of things. [00:16:44] Speaker 02: It just doesn't have to be outgoing optical fibers that they're connected to. [00:16:47] Speaker 02: They can be connected to a variety of different things. [00:16:49] Speaker 02: As Judge Dyke pointed out, they could be electrical in nature. [00:16:51] Speaker 02: They could be optoelectronic in nature. [00:16:53] Speaker 02: They could be fiber optic in nature. [00:16:56] Speaker 02: The claims just aren't limited in the way they want them to be limited. [00:16:59] Speaker 02: And that's how they're trying to get around Eichenberger. [00:17:00] Speaker 02: And that's why they changed their construction and their patent owner preliminary response to the patent owner response because of that issue. [00:17:07] Speaker 02: The claims just aren't limited like that. [00:17:10] Speaker 02: And with respect to their extrinsic evidence, [00:17:13] Speaker 02: That's just a bit of a red herring, because that extrinsic evidence is in tension with what the patent actually discloses in the claim claim. [00:17:20] Speaker 02: Because remember, in claim three, we're focusing on what's going on between the modules. [00:17:27] Speaker 02: We're not focusing on what's external beyond those modules outside of the optical assembly. [00:17:32] Speaker 02: So that's a crucial distinction that I want the court to take home with them. [00:17:36] Speaker 01: I assume you're talking to someone who learned everything [00:17:47] Speaker 01: in polarity as to outgoing electrical devices? [00:17:54] Speaker 02: Well, Eichenberg is a great example of that. [00:17:55] Speaker 02: So in Eichenberg, what you have are transmitter diodes and receiver diodes. [00:18:03] Speaker 02: So you have to be sure that the transceiver on one. [00:18:11] Speaker 02: So with respect to that purpose, I just want to reinforce the fact that the purpose of this invention [00:18:15] Speaker 02: is maintaining polarity between the modules inside the assembly. [00:18:22] Speaker 02: The concern is not external. [00:18:24] Speaker 02: That external concern, claims are agnostic to that. [00:18:27] Speaker 02: And that's a big distinction from claim one, where you're really focusing very directly on what's going on inside the module and the structure in that module. [00:18:45] Speaker 02: So to summarize, Your Honors, we need to focus on the claims that issued, not the claims that Corning wishes had issued. [00:18:54] Speaker 02: The intrinsic evidence is devoid of any support for requiring the optical interconnection modules to connect to any incoming fibers to outgoing fibers. [00:19:03] Speaker 02: That's just not what the claims require. [00:19:06] Speaker 02: That is why Corning felt compelled to repeatedly alter those figures in its briefing to contain fibers extending from the modules that just don't exist in the patent. [00:19:13] Speaker 02: By contrast, the spec and the claims fully support [00:19:16] Speaker 02: the board's construction of this limitation. [00:19:19] Speaker 02: Lastly, I think it should be emphasized that as a factual matter, Corning has conceded that Eichenberger does indeed disclose an optical interconnection. [00:19:28] Speaker 02: And this is what Corning stated. [00:19:30] Speaker 02: To be sure, there is an optical interconnection at the point where the fibers of the optical head body 40 are connected to the separate fibers of connector 64. [00:19:40] Speaker 02: And I direct the court's attention to A316. [00:19:44] Speaker 02: So no matter how Corning [00:19:46] Speaker 02: twists and turns the language of the claims, at the end of the day, they've conceded that there is an optical interconnection disclosed by Eichenberger. [00:19:53] Speaker 02: And if the court doesn't have any further questions. [00:19:55] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:20:13] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:20:15] Speaker 04: Judge Wallach, I think the question that you were asking is exactly the right question here. [00:20:20] Speaker 04: Because there is no purpose to maintaining polarity in something like Eichenberger. [00:20:28] Speaker 04: Because what is coming out of Eichenberger are not optical signals. [00:20:33] Speaker 04: What's coming out of Eichenberger [00:20:35] Speaker 01: are electrical signals. [00:20:37] Speaker 01: But you still have to maintain polarity, do you not, in dealing with, for example, the diodes that were discussed by your opposing counts? [00:20:44] Speaker 04: So inside Eichenberger, yes, there are fiber optic cables or optical fibers that are connected to the various diodes, one for transmitting, one for receiving. [00:21:00] Speaker 04: But in terms of what is coming out of Eichenberger itself, [00:21:05] Speaker 04: If you have the optical signals coming out on one end, you have the electrical signals coming out on the other. [00:21:12] Speaker 04: That's what makes it not an optical interconnection module. [00:21:16] Speaker 04: It is an electro-optical interconnection. [00:21:19] Speaker 04: I don't dispute that it's interconnecting something. [00:21:21] Speaker 04: What it is interconnecting are electrical signals and optical signals. [00:21:25] Speaker 04: In order to be an optical interconnection module, it needs to be interconnecting optical signals. [00:21:31] Speaker 04: Because the entire purpose, if you look at column [00:21:34] Speaker 04: Three lines 32 to 35 the entire purpose is that you can use the modules of the present inventions And this is this is at appendix 66 you can use the modules of the present inventions Interconnection of assemblies are deployable in a network multiple spans of assemblies can be interconnected [00:21:58] Speaker 04: And the optical path remains with its color. [00:22:01] Speaker 04: The whole point of this is that you have these assemblies that can be deployed throughout a network, and the colors will, the polarity will be maintained from one to the other. [00:22:13] Speaker 04: There's nothing special about having the ribbon run between two modules. [00:22:19] Speaker 04: What's special is being able to have series of these where the color remains the same, where the polarity remains the same. [00:22:28] Speaker 04: That's the entire purpose of the invention. [00:22:30] Speaker 04: And of course, as this court held in TQ Delta versus Dish Network, 929 F3 at 1358, when the specification indicates the purpose of the invention, well, that is good evidence for how the claims ought to be interpreted. [00:22:46] Speaker 04: And fundamentally, [00:22:48] Speaker 04: They have no answer to the fact that the only technical dictionary definition at issue here makes it clear that you've got to have the incoming and the outgoing fiber optics or the capability for it. [00:23:01] Speaker 04: Again, if you have the device sitting on a shelf, it's still an optical interconnection module, other than to say, well, that's somehow inconsistent with the specification. [00:23:12] Speaker 04: Show me the inconsistency. [00:23:14] Speaker 04: There's no inconsistency whatsoever, because every single example [00:23:18] Speaker 04: including those at column 3, 32 to 35, and those at column 23, 52 to 55. [00:23:25] Speaker 04: And every single figure, figure 2, 3, and 4, every single one show that the module itself is used for optically interconnecting optical ribbon on one end and optical fibers on the other. [00:23:41] Speaker 04: That's what it means for it to be an optical interconnection module. [00:23:45] Speaker 04: And as for the point that my colleague made at the very end regarding 40 and 64, that was not a basis for the board's institution. [00:23:55] Speaker 04: It's not a basis for the board's decision. [00:23:57] Speaker 04: This, of course, APA review, and there's no basis for relying on that at this point, in addition to the analysis of that being flawed. [00:24:06] Speaker 04: I'm happy to answer any further questions the panel may have. [00:24:09] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:24:10] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:24:10] Speaker 05: Thank you, Chief Judge Post.