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The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is now open and in session.

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God save the United States and this honorable court.

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Our first case this morning is number 19-1704, SYNCOR, Inc.

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versus ViCOR Corporation, Mr. Horowitz.

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Thank you, Your Honor, and may it please the court.

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ViCOR has twice litigated and lost on the key factual question at the center of this appeal.

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and there is no dispute that if the ordinary rules of issue preclusion were to apply, then the board's decision would have to be reversed.

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The only real question is whether there's some categorical exception to the application of issue preclusion in the context of inter-parties re-examination.

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Well, I'm not sure that's the only question because we could have a situation in which there's no categorical rule against it.

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but that it may depend on a case-by-case evaluation of the procedures.

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You agree that in inter-party re-examination, there is no opportunity for subpoenas across examination, correct?

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We do, Your Honor.

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And in fact, I think that case-by-case assessment, first of all, I think ViCOR doesn't ask for a case-by-case assessment.

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They ask for a categorical bar.

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But I think that that goes directly to the point that we make in our reply brief about the comparative assessment of the procedures that set forth in the restatement.

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So, and it's true there's no subpoenas, and I'll get to that in a moment, but the assessment we have here- And there's no cross-examination either, right?

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That's correct.

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And neither- And here on this critical frequency issue,

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You submitted declarations from Mr. Schlect, who was your CEO, which were relied on both by the board in the 702 and the 290.

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And when we affirmed in the 290, we also relied on the Schlect declaration.

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And there was no opportunity for cross-examination of Mr. Schlect in the board proceedings, right?

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That's right, Your Honor, and two points on that.

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So first, as we see from the restatement, as well as in the show first training school case, the opportunity for cross-examination is not essential as a general rule, so long as there's some opportunity to present appropriate evidence and argument to meet the positions presented.

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But second, in this case in particular, and the 290 appeal is really crucial here, even though there wasn't an opportunity for compulsory process in the re-exam itself,

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Vicor was able to obtain the deposition of Dr. Steigerwald, the key inventor of the key prior art reference, and submitted it.

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And Vicor's position was that Dr. Steigerwald's testimony was more credible than Dr. Schlect's.

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The board resolved that dispute over credibility, and this court affirmed as finding it was supported by substantial evidence.

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Vicor has never... What's your answer to the problem that they couldn't cross-examine Schlect?

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Two points.

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Number one,

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They haven't said that their absence of cross-examination of Schlect in this case is what matters.

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So this is an argument that if it were available, it's been waived.

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But more importantly, as the chauffeur's training school case makes clear and as the restatement makes clear, the question is it's a practical assessment of whether that cross-examination was crucial for the resolution of the relevant fact.

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And they haven't argued that it is.

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And they met our argument from Dr. Schlect with their argument from Dr. Steigerwald through his deposition.

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So that practical assessment weighs in our favor.

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They don't disagree.

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They don't say that they needed this cross-examination in this case.

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They argue for a categorical rule.

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And in the chauffer's training school case, there wasn't cross-examination.

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There wasn't subpoenas.

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There wasn't even an oral hearing.

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And nonetheless... An assessment in the chauffer's case that cross-examination wasn't necessary given the nature of the evidence, right?

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Correct.

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And in this case, first of all, the nature of the dispute here

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is the disclosure of prior art references on their face.

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So you've got a patent, and you've got printed publications.

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And the question is whether a person of ordinary skill would look at these references and be able to put them together and reach the claimed invention.

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We submitted a declaration.

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They were free to submit their own declaration, just as in the chauffeur's training school case, they were free to submit their own witnesses with their own expertise.

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Now, Vicor chose instead to submit

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deposition testimony from Dr. Steigerwald, but they had every opportunity to meet our expert with an expert of their own.

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They chose not to do so.

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But the availability of that battle of the experts in this case, or I should say in the prior proceedings, is more than sufficient to render that case fair to render conclusive resolutions of fact in that case for this one.

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And again, VIKRA has not made any of the arguments about the particulars of this case.

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VIKRA says it is a categorical rule, and if there's no categorical rule,

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Vicor doesn't have a second line argument along the lines you've suggested.

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So if the court were to conclude that if ever re-exams can give rise to preclusive findings of fact, then this is such a case.

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And remember, the restatement says it's an assessment of the comparative procedures and opportunities and incentives available across the two forums.

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In this case, we're litigating the exact same factual question in the same forum with the same parties

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subject to the same rules and procedures, and submitting essentially the same arguments and evidence, at least in this circumstance, there's absolutely no chance, no reason to give ViCOR a third opportunity to fight a fight that it lost twice before playing by the same rules.

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And that's important.

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It's the playing by the same rules.

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Even if there wasn't cross-examination in the last case, you might say, well, if there were cross-examination here, then that would make this case sufficiently different to withhold the application of preclusion

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based on the prior re-exam.

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And maybe that's the difference, maybe that's the reason you'd withhold the application of preclusion in an IPR based on a re-exam, or in district court based on a re-exam.

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But here, where you're going re-exam to re-exam, the procedures, opportunities, and incentives were exactly the same.

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And even if you thought depositions were generally important, in this case, in Vicor's case, because of the parallel district court proceedings,

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Vicor was able to obtain exactly the kind of evidence that they say is important.

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They haven't identified any other evidence.

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They haven't suggested that a cross-examination of Dr. Schlecht would make a difference.

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What they've done is, for example, point to the PTO's brief in the bio-delivery case, which presented the question whether findings in a re-exam can be preclusive in an IPR.

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But that, again, underscores exactly our point.

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That's a different question, and it's not presented by this case.

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This case presents the very narrow question of whether one re-exam can ever generate findings that are preclusive in a second.

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And as to that question, the PTO said nothing, and actually the PTO's arguments underscore the comparative nature of the inquiry.

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Another thing about bio-delivery is that the PTO pointed to provisions in the America Invents Act, which the PTO said

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gave the director discretion to withhold or apply preclusion under the ordinary rules based on a prior re-exam proceeding.

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There's no similar vesting of discretion in the PTO here under the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999.

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To the contrary, all we have is an estoppel provision that actually broadens the core common law estoppel and that this court recognizes much in affinity labs because Congress wanted to curb abusive re-examination requests.

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So against the backdrop where VICOR had all the same opportunities, and you have Congress making clear it wants broad estoppel, it makes no sense to withhold the application of the ordinary common law rule.

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And if there were any question about whether PTO proceedings were sufficiently judicial in nature to give rise to preclusive findings, you can go back to a long time ago in the CCPA, in 1942, the CCPA said they're obviously judicial in character,

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even in that case when it's an ex parte original examination and the party sought to be precluded was then in interference proceedings where there were additional protections.

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Now, I want to pivot with the time I have.

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If the court were to disagree and conclude that there is a categorical bar on the application of issue preclusion in the context of re-exam, we still think that at the very least,

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you would have to vacate and remand in light of the fundamental inconsistency across the various proceedings here.

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Now, we pointed to six in our brief, but I want to focus on just one here, the 290 patent proceeding.

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On the same day in May of 2016, the same panel with the same authoring judge was asked the same question, based largely on the same record, and came to two conflicting conclusions on that question, and didn't say a word to explain why.

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Now, VICOR does not defend the inconsistency of those two opinions.

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The suggestion is that the 2019 opinion provides a new rationale, right?

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That's correct.

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But here's the thing.

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The 2019 opinion only exacerbates the problem.

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First, as you know from our brief, our position is that the 2019 opinion just talks about Claim 34, which is moot.

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We can't even appeal the issue on the merits.

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even if you were to consider the analysis in the 2019 opinion, it comes up with yet a third conclusion on the same factual question, doesn't explain why it's an about face from the prior case, or prior decision in this case, and doesn't explain what's going on with the 290, when the most important thing that happened between 2016 and 2019 on this question is that this court affirmed the 290 patent proceeding, finding that substantial evidence supported the Patent Office's conclusion.

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that you wouldn't combine Stagerwald and Cobos because of frequency incompatibility.

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The board didn't say a word about that, even though we submitted the decision to them, tried to explain it, they said we couldn't.

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They didn't say a word about phase from 2016 in this case, and they certainly didn't say anything about the other six times that they answered the frequency incompatibility issue.

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So at least on this record, at the very least, you'd have to vacate and remand for an explanation of why the inconsistency.

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What changed, just as in the Vicor 2017 case?

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Now, apart from inconsistency and, of course, the preclusion and inconsistency arguments, that applies to all claims on the merits.

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There's also this issue with respect to the switching regulators for claims two through four.

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So even if you were to disagree and say that there's no vacater required for the rest of the claims, the board's findings with respect to the claims two through four really don't hold up.

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They said all circuits have inductance.

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Well, I mean, she's not all circuits.

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They said Steigerwald has inductance, so don't worry about the switching regulators.

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The truth is, all circuits have parasitic natural inductance.

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Whenever you flow current through a component, you're going to get some inductance from the magnetic field.

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But the key point is, Steigerwald says, don't add inductors.

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Well, that's exactly what adding a switching regulator would do.

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The board didn't contend with that.

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It understood this in 2014.

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at appendix 2-1-1-2-1 to 2-2, but then in 2016 and 2019, it seemed to have missed the boat.

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I see that I'm into my rebuttal, so if there's no further questions, I'd like to reserve the balance of my time.

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Okay, unless there are further questions, we'll hear from Mr. Smith.

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Thank you, Your Honor.

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May it please the Court, this is Nancy Smith for the Appellee Bicol Corporation.

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And I'd like to talk about the question of

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issue preclusion first.

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Why don't you first address the inconsistency between the two May 2nd decisions and explain to us why we wouldn't at least have to send that back to have the board reconcile the two decisions.

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I think it's for exactly the reason that came out in the colloquy with Mr. Horowitz and that is that the first or the May 16

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decision in this case is in effect now rendered superfluous by the 2019 case.

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The 2019 opinion is now the opinion of the agency and incorporates the 2016 opinion but offers additional factual justification for the board's findings which I think clarify the issue.

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The original rationale is still there, though, right?

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The original rationale is still there, but it's reaching the same conclusion as in the 2019 opinion.

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But it has been added to in a way that I think explains why the board reached the conclusion that it did.

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OK, why don't you go on to collateral estoppel?

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So in the present case, Your Honor, I think that the most analogous

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Supreme Court precedent that we have is the Astoria case.

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And from the Astoria case, we know that there is no assumption that the rules of preclusion would apply to an administrative agency decision where Congress has evinced some sort of intent to, in effect, regulate the rules of preclusion through the governing statutes or laws.

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And I think that's pretty clearly the case with inter-party re-examination.

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because we have the statutory provisions which provide for statutory estoppels in both civil litigation and in further inter-party re-examination proceedings, but also the provision of the Act, AIPA 4607, which regulates how facts are treated in subsequent proceedings.

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And that particular regulation is a subset of the common law doctrine of issue preclusion

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in the sense that it only applies to the requester, only applies to civil litigation, and contains an exception that is not found in the common law doctrine of issue of preclusion, which is that facts that are later determined to be erroneous based on newly arising information do not have the rule of preclusion attaching to them.

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And if one were to overlay

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the common law doctrine of issue preclusion onto AIPA 4607, there would be nothing less of the AIPA 4607.

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So it's really analogous to what was decided.

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Can I just interrupt you?

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Yes, Your Honor.

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Why should we read anything into Congress's extension of issue preclusion to civil actions?

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Wouldn't it be true that the rule would normally be that an administrative

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backfinding wouldn't preclude a district court.

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So therefore, if Congress wanted it to, then it would have to specifically reach that conclusion, which is what it did.

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But to me, I don't understand how that says anything about whether it intended to, you know, apply issue preclusion in the administrative proceeding itself.

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So thank you, Your Honor.

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So the provision of AIPA 4607, I think SYNCOR itself is arguing that this is, in effect, a broadening of the application of estoppel.

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The problem, however, is that that assumes a baseline of no estoppel.

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And I think that's accurate given the picture.

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No, no, no, no.

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Let me just interrupt you.

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If that's our argument, I don't agree with that argument either.

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Let's just ignore that statute.

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I don't find that statute to be all that helpful either way on the question of whether administrative estoppel should apply to these proceedings.

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And I know you want to say that Astoria says there's no presumption, but I thought that

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that at least some courts in B&B hardware has said that issue preclusion is available unless it's evident that Congress doesn't want it.

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So I don't see how that statutory provision extending estoppel to civil action says anything about whether Congress did or didn't want estoppel to apply in the administrative proceeding itself.

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So beyond that statutory argument, what argument do you have that we shouldn't apply issue preclusion to the re-exam proceedings?

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Well, certainly, Your Honor, in the restatement and in the case law framework that has developed around issue preclusion in administrative proceedings, there is a threshold inquiry about whether or not the proceeding is sufficiently adjudicatory.

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In other words, the common law

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issue-proclusion doctrine is a doctrine of the courts, and it only gets extended to administrative agencies by analogy to civil litigation.

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And in this case, we have an agency proceeding in the New Parties reexamination that the Supreme Court and staff has characterized as an inquisitorial process, much like ex parte reexamination.

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And that's really quite accurate.

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The only difference between

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Ex parte re-examination and inter-parties re-examination and bears on that question is the ability of the third-party requester to provide comments and the ability to appeal to the board.

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But I want to emphasize that that comment... Well, that underplays it a little bit, doesn't it?

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It's not just to provide comments.

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The other party can provide its own prior art.

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It can provide its own expert testimony about the prior art.

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to oppose the other view.

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So it seems to me that the only key things here missing are what Judge Dyke identified in your friend's argument, which is the ability to cross-examine and the ability to have judicial process requiring subpoenas and the like.

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Do you have any case law that says those two things

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are necessary to find this adjudicative?

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No, Your Honor, I don't think that there is a case that says those two things are necessary to find this adjudicative.

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I would, however, point out that even the B&B hardware case pointed out that the availability of cross-examination in TTAB proceedings, which are akin to contested proceedings in the Patent Office,

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important to their designation of that as a proceeding to which the rule of preclusion would apply.

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And certainly the comments and the restatements that we refer to in our brief imply the same thing.

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So those are certainly very important colors.

[00:19:50] Speaker 01:
Yes.

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This is Judge Cleverger.

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I read B&B processing to say... Pardon me.

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B&B hardware to say that the test when you're asking about the nature of these proceedings is to ask, well, in the proceedings, in the words of the court,

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are fundamentally poor, cursory, or unfair?

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In your view, does the absence of cross-examine and examination or mandatory process render the inter-parties re-examination process fundamentally poor, cursory, or unfair?

[00:20:27] Speaker 03:
In a comparative sense to a proceeding which would offer those protections, certainly it does.

[00:20:34] Speaker 01:
There's a limitation on what... What about in comparison to another re-exam?

[00:20:41] Speaker 03:
No, in comparison to another re-exam, the same procedures would be in place, of course.

[00:20:48] Speaker 01:
I would like to emphasize... Isn't that the question we're being asked, whether or not we will have preclusion from one re-exam to another?

[00:20:59] Speaker 03:
The question you're being asked certainly is whether there's preclusion from one re-exam to another.

[00:21:04] Speaker 03:
But the comparative inquiry that SYNCOR has advanced in the reply brief is one that I think comes in at the end of the analysis.

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In other words, there is a threshold question that examines only the nature of the proceeding itself and whether or not that is sufficiently adjudicative.

[00:21:23] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry, was there a question?

[00:21:25] Speaker 01:
Well, the restatement counsels that you're supposed to be trying to, when you're answering these questions that we're raising,

[00:21:32] Speaker 01:
You answer them in the context of the proceeding that's being conducted and what types of issues are trying to be decided.

[00:21:40] Speaker 01:
In the patent office setting, it seems to me that you're asking what one ordinary skill in the art would have thought about what references teach and whether to combine them.

[00:21:49] Speaker 01:
Those questions aren't being asked to general jury participants in a district court trial case.

[00:22:00] Speaker 01:
They're being asked

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qualified examiners, board examiners, board members who have skill in the art is necessary that cross-examination is essential to be confident that we have a fair proceeding.

[00:22:21] Speaker 03:
Well, certainly Congress has empowered the

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patent office to render a decision based on that proceeding itself.

[00:22:29] Speaker 01:
I mean, the question of fairness is truly goes to whether... And further, Congress has said, we must think that these proceedings are sufficiently fair that we're going to allow a fact found in the inter-party's proceeding to bind in a district court.

[00:22:47] Speaker 03:
That's absolutely true.

[00:22:50] Speaker 01:
Yeah, I'm not aware that there's ever been a due process challenge to the fundamental fairness

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of the proceedings in an inter-party re-exam.

[00:23:01] Speaker 01:
And our case law has relied on various declarations that have been made in connection with these proceedings over since 1990.

[00:23:10] Speaker 01:
We regularly credit the board having credited one declaration over another.

[00:23:23] Speaker 02:
The question is not here, is it the, whether there's unfairness in both proceedings, the fact that the proceedings are the same under B and B and under the restatement doesn't make for collateral estoppel unless the overall proceeding is fair for the adjudication of the fact in question, right?

[00:23:51] Speaker 02:
I think the overall question is that the... In other words, it's an objective standard, not a comparative standard.

[00:24:03] Speaker 03:
In the initial step of the analysis, in other words, whether or not the proceeding itself is sufficiently adjudicative, it is an objective standard.

[00:24:10] Speaker 03:
I agree with that, Your Honor.

[00:24:12] Speaker 03:
If one were to say inter-parties re-examination is sufficiently adjudicative,

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and then step through the factors of restatement 26 and 27.

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Those are the factors that ask me whether or not any particular case preclusion should apply.

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Eventually, one gets to the comparative analysis at the end, which effectively states that there can be cases where even if an underlying proceeding is sufficiently adjudicated, the follow-on proceeding may offer just

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sufficiently improved procedure that it wouldn't be fair to apply issue preclusion to the judgment of the original proceeding.

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And so what we're focused on in the present case is that initial determination, whether or not inter-party re-examination is sufficiently adjudicatory.

[00:25:02] Speaker 03:
In other words, is it a sufficiently good analogy to civil litigation that common law issue preclusion should apply?

[00:25:10] Speaker 03:
And it's not the case.

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I mean, there's simply too many differences between civil litigation and inter-credits re-examination to make that analogy really hold.

[00:25:19] Speaker 03:
And it's not just the ability to cross-examine witnesses and the ability to serve process.

[00:25:26] Speaker 03:
There's also the issue that there's no rules of evidence that apply.

[00:25:30] Speaker 03:
The ability of the requester to submit comments, and I'm using the statutory language there, but you're correct that the requester has been able to submit

[00:25:39] Speaker 01:
But there's no question that the initial findings, say, for example, the first decision, which is being used to preclude a later decision, there's no question that that first proceeding wasn't fair, just, and that the result wasn't correct.

[00:25:53] Speaker 01:
It was sufficient to bind the parties in the first one.

[00:25:58] Speaker 01:
Correct?

[00:25:59] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:25:59] Speaker 01:
In the abstract, I agree with Adam.

[00:26:01] Speaker 01:
Second proceeding with the same party, it's the same issue.

[00:26:08] Speaker 01:
issue preclusion is trying to do is to prevent a second bite of the apple for the same party on the same issue the second time around.

[00:26:19] Speaker 03:
Let me just clarify the procedural oddity of this particular constellation of cases, Your Honor.

[00:26:25] Speaker 03:
This is actually the first wild re-examination.

[00:26:29] Speaker 03:
It's not, you know, sort of second bite at the apple.

[00:26:32] Speaker 03:
It's on a different patent than the other patents

[00:26:35] Speaker 03:
These are proceedings that were started more or less in parallel, and it's just happenstance that this one happens to be arriving at a judgment later.

[00:26:42] Speaker 03:
So to the extent that that influences the analysis at all, that's not the sort of serial re-examination case that Congress was intending to protect against.

[00:26:51] Speaker 03:
And I think that's probably why there's no specific regulation for this in the statutes, even though those statutes do, I think, under Astoria, evince and attend to regulate the application of preclusion rules

[00:27:04] Speaker 03:
to the inter-party's re-examination frame, against an assumption that... Finish your sentence.

[00:27:12] Speaker 03:
Sorry, I see that I'm... Go ahead and finish your sentence.

[00:27:14] Speaker 03:
...against an assumption that I think was borne out in the case while there is no case that CINCOR has cited that actually applies an issue preclusion type rule from a re-examination in 40-year history of re-examination.

[00:27:27] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:27:28] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:27:28] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:27:29] Speaker 02:
Mr. Harwitz, you have a couple of minutes.

[00:27:37] Speaker 02:
Mr. Horowitz?

[00:27:39] Speaker 00:
Apologies.

[00:27:40] Speaker 00:
Sorry, I was on mute.

[00:27:41] Speaker 00:
My apologies.

[00:27:42] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:27:44] Speaker 00:
A couple of points.

[00:27:45] Speaker 00:
First, on the statute briefly, Congress certainly thought it was doing something remarkable in expanding preclusion to the district court setting because it enacted with that provision a severability clause recognizing the potential constitutional concerns, Seventh Amendment concerns, due to the differences in procedures.

[00:28:02] Speaker 00:
So I think it's pretty clear that they were taking a step beyond what they thought would otherwise apply.

[00:28:07] Speaker 00:
Now, on the process where I want to focus.

[00:28:10] Speaker 02:
But they didn't just say that there's preclusion.

[00:28:12] Speaker 02:
They said there's preclusion unless there's new evidence, right?

[00:28:17] Speaker 00:
As to civil actions, they didn't say that about administrative preclusion.

[00:28:20] Speaker 00:
The point is when they're expanding the core preclusion of the administrative rule to the district court setting, they said, we're not going to go all the way.

[00:28:28] Speaker 00:
We're going to have an exception in light of the fairness issues.

[00:28:31] Speaker 00:
But I want to turn to process, if I may, with my last couple of minutes, just say,

[00:28:35] Speaker 00:
You heard Vicor doesn't have a single case saying that cross-examination is essential.

[00:28:39] Speaker 00:
We, of course, have a case.

[00:28:41] Speaker 02:
You don't have a case that says the opposite, either.

[00:28:44] Speaker 00:
We do.

[00:28:45] Speaker 00:
We do.

[00:28:45] Speaker 02:
Wait, wait, wait.

[00:28:47] Speaker 02:
Except the Shoford case is the only one, and that says in the particular circumstances, their cross-examination wasn't essential.

[00:28:55] Speaker 02:
That's the only case you have, right?

[00:28:57] Speaker 00:
That is correct, and that goes straight to the restatement, which says it's not essential either, unless it's necessary.

[00:29:01] Speaker 00:
Again, given the comparison, and that's where I want to end.

[00:29:04] Speaker 00:
is this point about the comparison.

[00:29:06] Speaker 00:
VICOR suggests by setting the provisions in the restatement sections 20, what have you, three, I think, that this is the last concern.

[00:29:15] Speaker 00:
But you have to remember, all of those sections are about general preclusion.

[00:29:19] Speaker 00:
The part of the restatement that addresses administrative preclusion, it's the sort of special section, it's chapter six.

[00:29:25] Speaker 00:
And chapter six starts with the introductory note about how comparison fits in.

[00:29:29] Speaker 00:
And it says, the very first consideration is procedural,

[00:29:33] Speaker 00:
And it says, the essential issue is a comparison of the quality and intensiveness of the opportunity to litigate, et cetera.

[00:29:39] Speaker 00:
So.

[00:29:39] Speaker 02:
Do you mean that you have issue preclusion as long as both proceedings have an unfair process?

[00:29:46] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:29:46] Speaker 00:
I still think that the primary aspects of Restatement 83-2, in terms of notice, opportunity to be heard and submit evidence, that all has to be met.

[00:29:56] Speaker 00:
And it is met here.

[00:29:57] Speaker 00:
And again, VICOR doesn't dispute any of the essential elements of adjudication set forth

[00:30:02] Speaker 00:
and 83 to A, B, C, and D are met.

[00:30:06] Speaker 00:
Then as to E, such other procedural elements as may be required for the particular case.

[00:30:11] Speaker 00:
There may be circumstances where it's important to have cross-examination, but this isn't one of them.

[00:30:15] Speaker 00:
Now, I'll just close by saying that the Supreme Court has made clear in the Astoria case that Vicor cites that a losing litigant deserves no rematch after a defeat fairly suffered.

[00:30:26] Speaker 00:
Vicor lost twice before on the key frequency incompatibility issue in the same forum

[00:30:31] Speaker 00:
playing by the same rules.

[00:30:33] Speaker 00:
We respectfully submit that those prior findings are preclusive and that the decision below should be reversed.

[00:30:39] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:30:40] Speaker 00:
Okay.

[00:30:40] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:30:42] Speaker 02:
No further questions.

[00:30:43] Speaker 02:
Does anybody have any further questions?

[00:30:46] Speaker 01:
No.

[00:30:47] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:30:47] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.

[00:30:49] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Mr. Smith.

[00:30:50] Speaker 02:
The case is submitted.