[00:00:32] Speaker 03:
The next case is in raise Stephen Yu, 2018, 2000.

[00:00:38] Speaker 03:
Mr. Yu and you are ready.

[00:00:53] Speaker 02:
May it please the court, my name is Stephen Yu.

[00:00:56] Speaker 02:
I'm the pro se appellant.

[00:00:59] Speaker 02:
In this case, I'd like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal time.

[00:01:03] Speaker 02:
This is a case where the patent office is using over-broad claim construction, claim interpretation to artificially inflate the claim term so that their weak prior art can fit inside of it.

[00:01:15] Speaker 02:
The claim term in dispute is control system for autonomous driving of the vehicle on a roadway.

[00:01:22] Speaker 02:
But to focus on the main issue, the key word in dispute is driving on a roadway.

[00:01:28] Speaker 02:
as an autonomous driving on a roadway.

[00:01:31] Speaker 02:
The words driving on a roadway carries its ordinary plain meaning.

[00:01:36] Speaker 02:
But the patent office says that driving on a roadway is met by a lawnmower that operates autonomously.

[00:01:45] Speaker 01:
And they did this by- If I looked at the prior art reference, yeah, you're right.

[00:01:49] Speaker 01:
The primary embodiment is an autonomous lawnmower.

[00:01:53] Speaker 01:
But it's entitled Unmanned Utility Vehicle.

[00:01:57] Speaker 01:
And then it goes on and describes a lot of different types of unmanned utility vehicles it's contemplating.

[00:02:05] Speaker 01:
Among them is a lawn mower, but then also a line painter and also a sweeper.

[00:02:12] Speaker 01:
And so when I see those statements also being relied on by the agency, why isn't that reference reasonably read as

[00:02:26] Speaker 01:
teaching automated line painters, autonomous driving sweepers.

[00:02:34] Speaker 02:
Well, overall it's a lawn machine or a grounds-keeping machine.

[00:02:38] Speaker 02:
The angle machine is a lawn, so it's not clear.

[00:02:42] Speaker 01:
Just stay with me.

[00:02:44] Speaker 01:
What if the board, the agency said unmanned utility vehicle prior art reference contemplates more than

[00:02:52] Speaker 01:
a grounds-keeping vehicle.

[00:02:54] Speaker 01:
It also contemplates things like an autonomous driving sweeper, an autonomous driving line painter.

[00:03:01] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:03:02] Speaker 02:
That's pure speculation.

[00:03:03] Speaker 02:
It could be autonomously a line painter for a sports field.

[00:03:08] Speaker 01:
Well, the reference talks about a line painter and a sweeper.

[00:03:11] Speaker 01:
Does it not?

[00:03:13] Speaker 01:
It says those words.

[00:03:14] Speaker 01:
I'm not injecting those words into the reference.

[00:03:17] Speaker 02:
It does, but it's not perfectly clear in its disclosure that it is a road line sweeper.

[00:03:23] Speaker 02:
or a road sweeper.

[00:03:24] Speaker 02:
It could be also more plausibly a sports field sweeper for clearing debris after a baseball game or football line draw or football line painter for the grounds keeping.

[00:03:38] Speaker 02:
That's the more plausible explanation.

[00:03:40] Speaker 02:
But overall, it never says which one it is.

[00:03:42] Speaker 02:
It just says line painter and a sweeper.

[00:03:45] Speaker 02:
And it's not inherent.

[00:03:47] Speaker 02:
It's not 100% inherent that it has to be a road sweeper or a road line

[00:03:52] Speaker 03:
Now the reference AMGOT constantly talks about guiding the vehicle over a plot.

[00:04:01] Speaker 02:
Reverses a plot.

[00:04:02] Speaker 03:
Reverses a plot many times.

[00:04:04] Speaker 03:
So it's a piece of land.

[00:04:07] Speaker 03:
And you're claiming on a roadway.

[00:04:12] Speaker 03:
So you would have to persuade us that moving from a plot of land to a roadway

[00:04:19] Speaker 03:
is a patentable distinction, that it's not obvious that when a control system going over a plot of land wouldn't be expected to go over a roadway.

[00:04:31] Speaker 03:
And that's pretty difficult.

[00:04:33] Speaker 03:
Why isn't a roadway obvious over a plot of land?

[00:04:39] Speaker 02:
Well, it's not an obvious issue.

[00:04:41] Speaker 02:
They said that roadway is equivalent to driving

[00:04:46] Speaker 02:
The patent office mistakenly equivalent traversing over a plot of land as the same as being the complex action of the driving.

[00:04:56] Speaker 02:
Driving is a complex visual motor task that requires the full attention of the driver.

[00:05:02] Speaker 01:
Now we're getting to, I think, what could be the crux of the case.

[00:05:09] Speaker 01:
When I look at the dictionary definition of driving, it's the control or operation of a vehicle.

[00:05:16] Speaker 01:
Okay, controller operation of a vehicle on a road path, on a roadway.

[00:05:23] Speaker 01:
As I understand it, you seem to be, the premise of your argument is that autonomous driving on a roadway is not just merely the controller operation of an unmanned vehicle on a road, but it's some kind of vehicle that is being controlled that can navigate through traffic

[00:05:46] Speaker 01:
and obey traffic signs, traffic lights, traffic rules, and keep up with the speed of traffic, whether it's 30 miles an hour, 50 miles an hour, et cetera.

[00:06:00] Speaker 01:
And I don't see any of that language in the claim.

[00:06:04] Speaker 01:
And so I guess what I'm wondering is, why didn't you just amend your claims?

[00:06:10] Speaker 01:
This is an ex parte case.

[00:06:13] Speaker 01:
If you really wanted all of that

[00:06:16] Speaker 01:
Thinking to be part of your claim and invention Then you could have amended the claims to write that in to make that clear otherwise The controller operation of an unmanned vehicle on a roadway.

[00:06:30] Speaker 01:
I don't see why that wouldn't encompass an Automated sweeper automated line painter with wheels with a motor with a control system with a sensor system.

[00:06:42] Speaker 01:
I mean and got got all of that

[00:06:46] Speaker 02:
If I put everything that driving encompasses into the claim, it would be a very long claim.

[00:06:52] Speaker 02:
What I did instead was put a dozen examples of customary, ordinary examples of what driving means, sort of like making turns at intersections, keeping a safe distance, stopping for pedestrians.

[00:07:04] Speaker 02:
I put a dozen examples in there just so there's no doubt about what I mean by the term driving.

[00:07:10] Speaker 01:
You said it may include those things, which necessarily

[00:07:15] Speaker 01:
also suggest they may not include those things.

[00:07:18] Speaker 01:
It's a more open-ended expression of what you understand to be driving as disclosed in the specification.

[00:07:25] Speaker 01:
That's the concern I have.

[00:07:27] Speaker 01:
I don't think you would want us to say, oh, when you said may include 14 different things in your specification, you would want the claim then to

[00:07:39] Speaker 01:
be engorged with every single one of those 14 things as a requirement in the claim.

[00:07:44] Speaker 01:
I mean, that's not what we do with claim language in terms of incorporating everything in the specification.

[00:07:51] Speaker 02:
It would be the wrong thing to do, and it's all encompassed by the ordinary word driving.

[00:07:56] Speaker 01:
Which means control or operation of a vehicle.

[00:07:59] Speaker 02:
Control and numerous examples.

[00:08:00] Speaker 01:
Not control or operation of a vehicle that obeys all traffic lights, traffic rules, traffic signs.

[00:08:05] Speaker 01:
The example I give, yeah.

[00:08:09] Speaker 01:
goes 50 miles an hour.

[00:08:11] Speaker 02:
The example I give is of the family dog accidentally releasing the parking brake, mischievous family accidentally releasing the parking brake.

[00:08:18] Speaker 02:
The car rolls down the driveway, traverses across the street, hits the neighborhood car.

[00:08:24] Speaker 02:
The dog did not drive the car.

[00:08:27] Speaker 02:
The car moved, it traversed, but there was no complex visual motor task of driving the car.

[00:08:37] Speaker 01:
Do you think your claim limitation control system for autonomously driving a vehicle on a roadway is a means plus function limitation?

[00:08:48] Speaker 01:
I didn't see anything in your specification that describes exactly all the very complicated technology and algorithms for having a control system that's so sophisticated it can manage the navigation of a vehicle

[00:09:07] Speaker 01:
through lots of traffic, as you understand the claim to be.

[00:09:10] Speaker 02:
Well, I cited a 2006 MIT report, which gives 47 pages of dense technical information about how a robot drives on a road.

[00:09:22] Speaker 02:
It's prior to this.

[00:09:25] Speaker 02:
It's well known.

[00:09:26] Speaker 02:
I already have a long specification.

[00:09:29] Speaker 02:
There's no need for my specification to explain all the technical details.

[00:09:33] Speaker 02:
At the time, Google Car was already testing

[00:09:35] Speaker 02:
Google was already testing their self-driving cars.

[00:09:39] Speaker 02:
There's nothing abstract about such a control system.

[00:09:43] Speaker 02:
It exists.

[00:09:44] Speaker 02:
It's real life, and it works.

[00:09:47] Speaker 02:
And there's no need for me to explain in detail what that is.

[00:09:53] Speaker 03:
Would you like to save the rest of your time for a bottle, or do you have further comments to make?

[00:09:58] Speaker 02:
I have no further comments.

[00:09:59] Speaker 02:
I would like to save the rest of the time for a bottle.

[00:10:01] Speaker 03:
We will do that.

[00:10:04] Speaker 03:
Ms.

[00:10:04] Speaker 03:
Schoenfeld.

[00:10:06] Speaker 00:
May it please the court?

[00:10:08] Speaker 00:
I just wanted to make a few additional points.

[00:10:11] Speaker 00:
In addition to the points Judge Chen you raised, the control system, the claim is to an apparatus claim.

[00:10:18] Speaker 00:
The structure is the control system.

[00:10:20] Speaker 00:
The control system is only nominally mentioned in the specification, and it's not shown at all in the figures.

[00:10:27] Speaker 00:
If you look at the description of the car, it doesn't even talk about or show the control system.

[00:10:33] Speaker 00:
So the structure that's needed for the control system is not given in the specification.

[00:10:40] Speaker 00:
And as Appellant admits, this control system was known, if not the novel aspect of it, that was brought out in prosecution, that the control system is not the novel aspect of it.

[00:10:50] Speaker 00:
And Appellant admits, of course, that Angot has a control system which can control the vehicle and communicate with the motor, which is all that is required

[00:11:02] Speaker 00:
from the claims.

[00:11:05] Speaker 00:
And I guess to answer his dog thing, it's not a method claim.

[00:11:09] Speaker 00:
And here the Angot control system is functioning to operate the actual vehicle.

[00:11:15] Speaker 00:
So it's not the same as a dog just by accident.

[00:11:19] Speaker 00:
I'm not even sure how the dog would do that, because obviously the dog would have to press something in order to operate the vehicle.

[00:11:25] Speaker 00:
But that example is not the same as using the Angot reference.

[00:11:30] Speaker 03:
I think there's a television commercial that depicts that.

[00:11:33] Speaker 00:
I have not seen that commercial.

[00:11:35] Speaker 04:
And again, you know, the board was properly relying... So do you think the roadway limitation is just not a limitation in this claim?

[00:11:45] Speaker 00:
Well, I think it is a limitation.

[00:11:47] Speaker 00:
I mean, it says driving on a roadway, but roadway is broad.

[00:11:50] Speaker 00:
And even in the specification, it talks about a paved roadway, but paved roadway is not claimed.

[00:11:55] Speaker 00:
It's here.

[00:11:55] Speaker 00:
So the claim is to a... Does Angot disclose a roadway?

[00:12:00] Speaker 04:
What?

[00:12:01] Speaker 04:
Does Angot disclose a roadway?

[00:12:03] Speaker 00:
Angot discloses a number of things which could be construed as a roadway.

[00:12:08] Speaker 00:
As we said in our brief, the ordinary term of roadway is just basically a strip of land.

[00:12:18] Speaker 00:
Right, but Angot also talks about it being used in multiple

[00:12:23] Speaker 00:
configuration that could be used in many different ways.

[00:12:25] Speaker 04:
The sweeper, you know... I thought I understood your answer to be yes.

[00:12:30] Speaker 04:
So if it was yes, can you tell me where in Angot is the language that I can construe as a disclosure of a roadway?

[00:12:42] Speaker 00:
So as I mentioned, roadway is a broad term.

[00:12:45] Speaker 04:
I just want to be clear.

[00:12:46] Speaker 04:
Is it true that the board did not find it would be obvious

[00:12:51] Speaker 04:
do this on a roadway, but rather found Angot actually disclosed the roadway limitation.

[00:12:56] Speaker 04:
Is that right?

[00:12:56] Speaker 00:
The boards said that Angot was capable of meeting the claim limitation driving on a roadway.

[00:13:01] Speaker 00:
I guess more precisely, the boards found that the structure control system for driving on a roadway, Angot was capable of meeting that control system.

[00:13:19] Speaker 00:
Again, this is an unmanned vehicle, which is operated on a broad piece of land, which could be called a roadway.

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
I guess you're saying this is not a method claim, where there's a step recited in the claim for driving the unmanned vehicle on the road.

[00:13:39] Speaker 01:
This is a structured claim to the vehicle itself that has a bunch of structural attributes.

[00:13:45] Speaker 01:
And then one structural attribute is this thing

[00:13:49] Speaker 01:
drive this thing on a roadway and the board concluded that what the reference discloses about an unmanned utility vehicle has all the attributes that it can also be driven on a roadway.

[00:14:06] Speaker 00:
Yes, that's correct.

[00:14:07] Speaker 04:
So would that be true?

[00:14:08] Speaker 04:
I'm just trying to understand this capable of argument.

[00:14:11] Speaker 04:
Sure.

[00:14:11] Speaker 04:
Suppose that all Angot disclosed was

[00:14:15] Speaker 04:
Vacuum cleaner like one of those vacuum cleaners that people have in their house that like you don't have to be there for it Just zooms all over the house till it bumps into something then changes direction That would have a control system for automated movement Now nobody would suggest that a vacuum cleaner like that would be likely to travel on the road

[00:14:34] Speaker 04:
Are you suggesting that under the board's capable of notion that anything with a control system capable of controlling itself such that theoretically you could put the vacuum cleaner out on the road and it would go straight, that that would meet this limitation?

[00:14:49] Speaker 00:
I think in your example actually the vacuum I mean that might be broad enough you know the driving on a roadway just means operating a vehicle I mean I think especially because the description was paved roadway

[00:15:01] Speaker 00:
and roadway is just a strip of land, I think arguably it could be broad enough.

[00:15:05] Speaker 00:
I mean, this is a very broad plain.

[00:15:07] Speaker 04:
I'm not sure I agree that roadway is just a strip of land.

[00:15:10] Speaker 04:
I have grass at home.

[00:15:11] Speaker 04:
I can't imagine anyone looking at the grass at my front lawn and saying, ah, a roadway.

[00:15:15] Speaker 04:
That doesn't make sense.

[00:15:17] Speaker 04:
Just like a vacuum cleaner operates on a carpet.

[00:15:19] Speaker 04:
I don't think anyone's going to say that carpet is also a roadway.

[00:15:22] Speaker 04:
So I don't think the strip of land thing necessarily, for me, gets me there.

[00:15:28] Speaker 04:
So tell me, is the board of the view that if it has a control system which is capable of being operated on a roadway, even if it's a disclosure or a vacuum cleaner, that nonetheless discloses this element?

[00:15:39] Speaker 00:
There certainly is case law that, like the Schreiber lines of cases where it talks about if you just have the structure that's claimed, and here there is basically no structure.

[00:15:49] Speaker 00:
All there is is a control system.

[00:15:50] Speaker 00:
There's no further structure described.

[00:15:52] Speaker 00:
everyone's in agreement that ANGOT has that control system, that it would inherently be capable of performing the same functions as the claimed apparatus.

[00:16:05] Speaker 00:
So I think in this case, the board didn't necessarily need to go fully into that analysis because ANGOT is operating on what is broad enough to meet roadway.

[00:16:15] Speaker 00:
But I think you could go there, certainly.

[00:16:16] Speaker 04:
You say it's operating on something that's broad enough to meet roadway.

[00:16:19] Speaker 04:
What do you mean?

[00:16:20] Speaker 04:
What is the thing that's broad enough to meet roadway in NGOT?

[00:16:24] Speaker 00:
The fact that there's a disclosure of, you know, that you could be on a path, like you're on a plot of land.

[00:16:30] Speaker 00:
It talks about, you know, the bore specifically found, you know, on page five, that it could be a vacuum cleaner, sweeper, scrubber.

[00:16:39] Speaker 00:
I know the examiner talked about, you know, roadways.

[00:16:42] Speaker 00:
Which of those discloses roadway?

[00:16:45] Speaker 00:
you know, the sander, the buffer, the line painter.

[00:16:48] Speaker 00:
The line painter, you're certainly on a specific piece of road that's designated.

[00:16:54] Speaker 04:
Really?

[00:16:55] Speaker 04:
What about line painting on fields, like football fields and everything else?

[00:17:00] Speaker 00:
I think you're still, like, that can still meet the broad language.

[00:17:04] Speaker 04:
The roadway definition?

[00:17:05] Speaker 00:
Yeah.

[00:17:05] Speaker 04:
So if roadway was a limitation, something that paints the lines on the football field is on a roadway?

[00:17:10] Speaker 00:
I think that, I mean, there's no

[00:17:16] Speaker 04:
So let me tell you, have you ever seen Waterboy with Adam Sandler?

[00:17:19] Speaker 00:
I have not.

[00:17:20] Speaker 04:
Oh my gosh.

[00:17:21] Speaker 04:
This was such a win for you.

[00:17:23] Speaker 04:
People with PTO, how did you not moon her on Adam Sandler?

[00:17:26] Speaker 04:
Adam Sandler, he's got some deficits.

[00:17:30] Speaker 04:
And his mom, despite his age, will only allow him to drive his lawnmower to and from school.

[00:17:35] Speaker 04:
So he drives his lawnmower to and from school.

[00:17:38] Speaker 00:
Well, perfect.

[00:17:39] Speaker 00:
I'll add that to my list of movies.

[00:17:41] Speaker 03:
Not on the record.

[00:17:44] Speaker 00:
Traditional notice.

[00:17:49] Speaker 00:
If there are no further questions, I'll yield the remainder of my time.

[00:17:53] Speaker 03:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:17:55] Speaker 03:
Mr. Yu has a little bit of time if you wish to use it.

[00:18:01] Speaker 02:
In the conclusion of the brief, the Patent Office makes an unusual request to this court.

[00:18:05] Speaker 02:
They ask the court that if they should lose this case, they want the court to remand with instructions

[00:18:13] Speaker 02:
that the Patent Office should continue the examination of this application with the more relevant self-driving car prior that I've been talking about all this time and basically issue a new rejection.

[00:18:24] Speaker 02:
They're essentially asking a court for a court decreed do-over to mandate

[00:18:30] Speaker 02:
a second bite at the apple.

[00:18:32] Speaker 04:
I'm confused.

[00:18:32] Speaker 04:
With all due respect, they always get that.

[00:18:34] Speaker 04:
We can't order the issuance of a patent.

[00:18:36] Speaker 04:
So if we were to vacate and remand this, they are then free to enter new rejections below.

[00:18:41] Speaker 04:
It happens all the time.

[00:18:42] Speaker 04:
It's the normal order of things.

[00:18:43] Speaker 04:
We have no authority to order the issuance of a patent.

[00:18:46] Speaker 02:
I agree.

[00:18:47] Speaker 02:
So I simply ask this court to reverse the board decision without any

[00:18:53] Speaker 02:
mandate that they're asking for in their conclusion.

[00:18:57] Speaker 04:
Well, they automatically get that no matter what.

[00:18:59] Speaker 04:
I mean, that's the law.

[00:19:00] Speaker 04:
That's the state of the law.

[00:19:03] Speaker 02:
So going back to the merits of the argument, the overall controlling precedent is Smith International.

[00:19:08] Speaker 02:
It's presidential.

[00:19:09] Speaker 02:
It's recent, 2017.

[00:19:11] Speaker 02:
The facts are parallel.

[00:19:13] Speaker 02:
The Patent Office hasn't offered a better matching precedent.

[00:19:17] Speaker 02:
It relies only on general case law.

[00:19:19] Speaker 02:
A key takeaway in Smith International is the Patent Office

[00:19:22] Speaker 02:
gave the rationale that the examiner's broad reading of the claim word was justified because the specification neither precluded nor prohibited the over-broad interpretation.

[00:19:35] Speaker 02:
That's the rationale I'll call.

[00:19:36] Speaker 02:
Well, if it doesn't exclude, then it must include.

[00:19:39] Speaker 02:
That's the catchphrase I use.

[00:19:40] Speaker 02:
And the PTO says the word driving includes all these grounds-keeping operations.

[00:19:49] Speaker 02:
My answer to the argument is that it doesn't make sense.

[00:19:52] Speaker 02:
It's not consistent with what I had clearly wrote in the patent application.

[00:20:00] Speaker 04:
I don't understand.

[00:20:01] Speaker 04:
I mean, driving a lawn mower, just like somebody drives a golf cart, they can drive a lawn mower, they can drive a car, they can drive bumper cars, they can drive a go-kart.

[00:20:10] Speaker 04:
I guess I don't understand how you are imparting some sort of very, very narrow interpretation for the word driving.

[00:20:18] Speaker 02:
Well, if a person was driving a lawn machine,

[00:20:22] Speaker 02:
By riding lawnmower, they would be driving it on a road.

[00:20:25] Speaker 02:
But that's not what's happening here in Anglic.

[00:20:27] Speaker 02:
It doesn't say that it's driving on a roadway.

[00:20:31] Speaker 02:
Let's say, you know, I think the patent office makes a big deal out of- No, but it's still driving.

[00:20:35] Speaker 04:
At a lawnmower.

[00:20:36] Speaker 02:
It's traversing a plot of land, which is difficult.

[00:20:39] Speaker 02:
OK, then you're traversing a road.

[00:20:42] Speaker 02:
Oh, driving is more narrower than traversing.

[00:20:44] Speaker 03:
It's a very- This is an obviousness rejection, not anticipation.

[00:20:49] Speaker 02:
Well, right now, we're just addressing whether Angot-Launmore is meeting this single claim limitation, because that's what the board's obviousness rejection relies upon.

[00:21:02] Speaker 02:
And they make a lot of, they talk a lot about the dirt, the dirt that Angot described, and that can be a dirt road.

[00:21:11] Speaker 02:
But even a dirt road, in a rural dirt road, if you approach

[00:21:16] Speaker 02:
If the Angot lawnmower approaches a four-way intersection with a stop sign with two other cars there, is it going to know what to do?

[00:21:25] Speaker 02:
That's what driving means.

[00:21:27] Speaker 02:
OK, there's rules of the road.

[00:21:28] Speaker 02:
You can't just traverse the intersection.

[00:21:32] Speaker 02:
You have to look and follow the rules and then go.

[00:21:35] Speaker 02:
That's driving, not just traversing.

[00:21:39] Speaker 02:
And Angot is simply, as common sense would dictate, it's just traversing a problem land to

[00:21:45] Speaker 02:
There's a whole list of things what ANGA does.

[00:21:48] Speaker 02:
They're all related to groundskeeping, mulching, mowing, throwing rocks.

[00:21:54] Speaker 02:
It mentions nothing about a roadway and nothing about driving.

[00:21:59] Speaker 02:
It's really the patent office using over-broad claim construction to make their weak prior art fit into the claim.

[00:22:11] Speaker 02:
That won't be the first time it happens.

[00:22:14] Speaker 02:
It's Smith International.

[00:22:16] Speaker 02:
It is the controlling case, Your Honor.

[00:22:19] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:22:21] Speaker 02:
The case is submitted.