[00:00:00] Speaker 03: The case for argument is 21-2349, internal tech versus Activision Blizzard. [00:00:09] Speaker 03: How do I pronounce your name, counsel? [00:00:12] Speaker 04: Buther. [00:00:12] Speaker 03: Mr. Buther, please proceed. [00:00:14] Speaker 04: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:00:17] Speaker 04: May it please the court. [00:00:18] Speaker 04: This appeal is necessitated by two occasions where the trial court misapplied her own claim construction and, as a result, erroneously entered summary judgment of non-infringement. [00:00:33] Speaker 04: The third issue deals with what we contend is a lack of recognition, appropriate recognition, of the substantial evidence of a nexus between the acts of infringement of the method claims [00:00:47] Speaker 04: and the asserted reasonable royalty damages resulting from that infringement. [00:00:52] Speaker 04: And so regarding the first issue, which is the combining said observer data issue, the court erroneously ruled that in order to satisfy the combining of said observer data requirement, the plaintiff had to prove all observer data [00:01:09] Speaker 04: was combined with the light accumulation buffer. [00:01:13] Speaker 02: In other words, the said observer data, as recited in the claim, has to refer back to the same observer data that's recited further up in the claim about providing observer data. [00:01:26] Speaker 04: Yes, Your Honor. [00:01:27] Speaker 04: We fully agree that the court somehow became fixated with the term said and didn't give enough attention to the construction of the term observer data, which was [00:01:39] Speaker 04: data representing at least the color of objects. [00:01:43] Speaker 04: So it was an open-ended construction with a minimum requirement of the color of objects. [00:01:50] Speaker 04: But it permitted more than that, but it didn't require all. [00:01:54] Speaker 04: It only required that minimum amount. [00:01:56] Speaker 04: And the court disagreed with that, wrongly believed. [00:02:00] Speaker 04: So we concede that the two terms had the same meaning. [00:02:04] Speaker 04: The critical question is, what is that meaning? [00:02:06] Speaker 04: And the court made it very clear that it is at least, but not all, observed. [00:02:13] Speaker 02: Can I give you a quick hypothetical? [00:02:14] Speaker 02: Sure. [00:02:14] Speaker 02: Just so I understand your position. [00:02:17] Speaker 02: What if the claim? [00:02:20] Speaker 02: had the following limitations, providing a letter of the alphabet, comparing said letter of the alphabet with some document, and then finally combining said letter with some numbers. [00:02:40] Speaker 02: And then is it your view that you could point to different letters of the alphabet for each of those three limitations for an infringement theory? [00:02:52] Speaker 02: No. [00:02:53] Speaker 04: If I could answer, I think I understand your question. [00:02:54] Speaker 02: No, not different words. [00:02:56] Speaker 02: The first limitation providing the letter of the alphabet could be A. Comparing said letter could be B. And then combining said letter with some other stuff could be C. And then you would say, well, because [00:03:08] Speaker 02: under plain and ordinary meaning, letter of the alphabet can be any letter of the alphabet. [00:03:14] Speaker 02: I'm allowed to migrate around through the entire alphabet and point to different letters to meet each of the individual limitations. [00:03:23] Speaker 04: I think the analogous situation is if the providing steps said providing letters of the alphabet, but the court considered as [00:03:32] Speaker 04: but including at least the letter A, then the definition of observer data, or the letters there, would be at least the letter A. And so that's why the evidence that the plaintiff submitted that combining observer data constituted combining albedo data with the light accumulation buffer data was not combining a portion of observer data [00:03:57] Speaker 04: It was the observer data, because the observer data was defined as, at a minimum, the color of data. [00:04:04] Speaker 04: But it could include more. [00:04:05] Speaker 04: It could include depth, value, other things. [00:04:08] Speaker 04: So we weren't in step 1D. [00:04:10] Speaker 04: Go ahead. [00:04:10] Speaker 02: I'll see if you didn't. [00:04:12] Speaker 02: I'm still troubled, because I didn't see any case law authority for your theory. [00:04:18] Speaker 02: And I couldn't find any either that supports the notion that [00:04:22] Speaker 02: Under a claim construction, you can start pointing to different things as applying to a particular claim term in the way you want to, in the sense that you want data representing at least color data to be five or six types of data upfront for observer data, but then at the tail end of the claim, [00:04:48] Speaker 02: you're pointing to just albedo data for the final limitation. [00:04:55] Speaker 02: And that makes me wonder, are you really allowed to do that in terms of moving around, in terms of shape shifting what exactly you're pointing to as the respective [00:05:09] Speaker 02: observer data in an accused embodiment. [00:05:12] Speaker 04: I don't think it's moving around. [00:05:15] Speaker 02: Could you please answer my first question? [00:05:17] Speaker 02: Is there any case law authority that you know of which says, you know, we can point to different kinds of embodiments of what would meet this claim construction for the different limitations of a claim for infringement purposes? [00:05:30] Speaker 04: Well, I think the case law is twofold. [00:05:32] Speaker 04: One is [00:05:32] Speaker 04: There's a recognition of an open-ended claim, which has minimum requirements. [00:05:37] Speaker 04: And Judge Lynn said that herself. [00:05:39] Speaker 02: I'm still fixated on my question, which is, are you aware of any case law that allows you to do the thing that you want to do to [00:05:49] Speaker 02: create an infringement theory where you're applying different conceptions of what can be observer data in different limitations of a claim to an accused and body? [00:06:00] Speaker 04: The short answer is no, because I don't think this is a case law issue. [00:06:03] Speaker 04: I think it is a claim construction issue and a definition of the term observer data as a minimum, at least, the color of data of objects. [00:06:13] Speaker 04: And so therefore, it's not a question of case law. [00:06:15] Speaker 04: It's a question of, [00:06:16] Speaker 04: What does that mean at least? [00:06:18] Speaker 04: And the courts have recognized open-ended terms [00:06:21] Speaker 04: and that they include at least some things, but may include other things, but don't have to. [00:06:27] Speaker 04: So we're not picking and choosing, if you will. [00:06:30] Speaker 00: Yes? [00:06:30] Speaker 00: I understand your argument. [00:06:32] Speaker 00: What I want to ask you, though, is related to many of Judge Chen's questions to you. [00:06:39] Speaker 00: Why doesn't your interpretation read out the language in step 1c of comparing at least a portion of said observables? [00:06:48] Speaker 04: Very good question, because Judge Loon was clearly preoccupied, if you will, or very attentive to that issue. [00:06:56] Speaker 04: And that's because [00:06:57] Speaker 04: The definition of observer data, meaning at least the color of data, means that observer data is that, at least, the color of data. [00:07:06] Speaker 04: So in 1D, when we said the combining of albedo is the combining of at least the color of data, that was not a portion of observer data. [00:07:16] Speaker 04: That is observer data as the court defined it, which is at least the color of data. [00:07:21] Speaker 04: And it could be more, but it is at least that. [00:07:24] Speaker 04: So we weren't saying in 1D that we [00:07:27] Speaker 00: So what you're saying is that when you say, you're saying that comparing at least a portion [00:07:35] Speaker 00: means it has to be just some of the data of one of the many different types that you think it can be under the claim that string. [00:07:41] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:07:41] Speaker 04: Part of that string or collection, it doesn't even have to include observer data, which in this case, the evidence showed that it was not. [00:07:48] Speaker 04: But it's part of that collection that includes color of data. [00:07:53] Speaker 04: But a portion of observer data simply means a portion of the collection that includes color of data. [00:07:59] Speaker 04: So that's why the judge was wrong when she thought that that implied [00:08:03] Speaker 04: that without the word portion, you must have all of the observer data that's identified up in the parading step. [00:08:10] Speaker 00: I didn't hear you identify any cases for Judge Chen that supported your interpretation of said. [00:08:18] Speaker 04: Neither support nor refute, because again, I don't think it's a case law issue. [00:08:22] Speaker 04: I believe it's an issue of simply reading the construction of the court and applying that construction, which is fairly clear. [00:08:29] Speaker 04: It's a minimum. [00:08:30] Speaker 04: of the color of data, it can include more. [00:08:34] Speaker 04: So, like I say, if the definition is provide an alphabet, but the alphabet includes a, but it can include more than a, [00:08:44] Speaker 04: Picking A for step 1D for the combining step is not picking a portion of that definition. [00:08:50] Speaker 04: It is taking that definition full on and satisfying it. [00:08:54] Speaker 02: Even if when you're mapping the first limitation of providing the letter of the alphabet to where you're mapping to the accused product. [00:09:01] Speaker 02: Oh, the accused product is providing A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, O, P. [00:09:06] Speaker 04: That's the universe that's provided. [00:09:08] Speaker 04: Then it talks about comparing, storing and combining, which are the three operative steps. [00:09:13] Speaker 04: I mean, you have to have the collection to begin with. [00:09:16] Speaker 04: But in terms of comparing, storing and combining, [00:09:20] Speaker 04: There are discrete limitations on the term observer data means at least the color of data. [00:09:27] Speaker 04: So in meeting limitation 1D, the combining step, it doesn't have to have the entire alphabet. [00:09:34] Speaker 04: It simply has to have at least, at a minimum, the color of data. [00:09:38] Speaker 02: Just so I understand it, at bottom, as long as each individual limitation that calls out observer data [00:09:47] Speaker 02: meets the claim construction for that term observer data, in your view, that's good grounds for an infringement. [00:09:55] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:09:55] Speaker 02: And if you are choosing to map different conceptions of what meets the observer data limitation to each of those limitations that recite observer data. [00:10:08] Speaker 02: They meet the claim construction, but nevertheless, they are different conceptions of what meets the limitation of observer data. [00:10:17] Speaker 04: I use the term, there is the different compositions, that the same meaning applies throughout the claim to observer data, but that in 1C and in 1D, different components of the alphabet [00:10:30] Speaker 04: different components of observer data can satisfy that particular step. [00:10:34] Speaker 04: So the composition can vary from claim to claim, but it must, if it's observer data, at least have the color of objects in there. [00:10:43] Speaker 04: And so when it says a portion of observer data, you look at that string, that collection, and if it includes observer data, color of data, you've met the definition of observer data. [00:10:54] Speaker 04: But a portion of observer data can be less than that collection, even less [00:10:59] Speaker 04: less than including the color of data, which is the minimum requirement. [00:11:05] Speaker 04: So yes, that's our view on that. [00:11:07] Speaker 04: And the court just simply missed that. [00:11:12] Speaker 04: There's no subset here in observer data in claim 1D. [00:11:16] Speaker 04: It is observer data as defined. [00:11:19] Speaker 04: And there's no conflict. [00:11:20] Speaker 04: Now, if I go to sequence of steps, you're on the other ground. [00:11:26] Speaker 04: In that case, the court also misapplied its claim construction there. [00:11:29] Speaker 04: The construction, which was agreed to, was that before beginning the claimed combining step, you have to complete the comparing and storing steps. [00:11:39] Speaker 04: Well, the claimed combining requirement, once again, has two components, essentially. [00:11:44] Speaker 04: One is it has to be observer data, which includes the color of objects, and it has to be combined with a portion of light accumulation buffer data. [00:11:55] Speaker 04: And so the court, however, in her ruling [00:11:58] Speaker 04: that the sequence of steps wasn't met as a matter of law, said any combination of any data occurring before the completion of the comparing and storing steps precluded infringement. [00:12:11] Speaker 04: And that was a clear error. [00:12:13] Speaker 04: And when you look at the court's question presented, that kind of highlights it. [00:12:17] Speaker 04: In that question presented, she said that [00:12:24] Speaker 04: Do the A22 and 488 patents require that comparing and storing be completed for each light source? [00:12:30] Speaker 04: That was a mistake, but it's another one. [00:12:32] Speaker 04: Before any combining begins? [00:12:36] Speaker 04: And her answer to that question was yes, but that misstated as a matter of law what the claims require, because the issue is not any combining, but the claimed combining. [00:12:46] Speaker 04: And the claimed combining requires the color of objects be included and that that [00:12:52] Speaker 04: data was combined with the light accumulation buffer data and there is no evidence at all. [00:12:58] Speaker 04: She didn't bother pointing to it because she defined the issue as the subtract legal issue of whether any combining would preclude infringement and we argued vociferously but to no avail that that was not the test. [00:13:13] Speaker 04: The proper test was the claimed combining step which clearly required [00:13:19] Speaker 04: these elements of the color objects and combined with light accumulation buffer data and she ignored that issue. [00:13:27] Speaker 04: She just went straight to the broader general question of any combining and defined it as a legal question that she could answer without any findings of fact because we didn't dispute that there could be some combining somewhere [00:13:41] Speaker 04: In fact, the storm stepper. [00:13:43] Speaker 03: Oh, no. [00:13:45] Speaker 04: Unless the court has questions, I will defer until later. [00:13:50] Speaker 04: Thank you very much, Your Honor. [00:13:52] Speaker 03: You did, in your argument, bring to mind one of my favorite movies, A Few Good Men. [00:13:55] Speaker 03: I strenuous. [00:13:57] Speaker 03: Yeah. [00:13:58] Speaker 03: Didn't do as good, did it? [00:14:08] Speaker 01: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:14:09] Speaker 01: May it please the court, John Gerritsen for Activision Blizzard. [00:14:13] Speaker 01: There are two independent bases on which the Your Honor should affirm the district court judgment below. [00:14:20] Speaker 01: One is on the combining said observer data limitation, and the other is on the sequence of steps, as I believe Mr. Buter briefly addressed at the end of his argument. [00:14:29] Speaker 01: And Judge Chen, in response to your hypothetical, and Judge Stoll in response to your question about reading out the at least a portion in step 1c, we believe that is exactly what plaintiffs are trying to do. [00:14:41] Speaker 01: The claim should be read as a whole. [00:14:44] Speaker 01: It needs to be internally consistent. [00:14:47] Speaker 01: The point of this invention is to accumulate light in a light accumulation buffer and to not just look at color. [00:14:56] Speaker 01: There's been a suggestion that plaintiffs could hypothetically just look at color for each step. [00:15:01] Speaker 01: That's not what they did. [00:15:02] Speaker 01: That's not what their expert did. [00:15:04] Speaker 01: But the point is to determine whether a point in the modeled scene is actually illuminated. [00:15:10] Speaker 01: In order to do that, you don't just look at what the pixel or what the color looks like. [00:15:16] Speaker 01: You look at where it is. [00:15:17] Speaker 02: The plain construction for observer data, though, is just at least color data, right? [00:15:22] Speaker 01: Yes, Your Honor. [00:15:23] Speaker 02: So it would cover an embodiment that's just color data all the way through. [00:15:27] Speaker 01: Hypothetically. [00:15:28] Speaker 02: Combining, comparing, combining. [00:15:30] Speaker 01: Yes, hypothetically, but that's not what their planet's expert did in this case. [00:15:35] Speaker 01: It identified a lot of material for step 1A, what's been referred to in the briefing as step 1A, as the observer data, including normal vertex position data. [00:15:47] Speaker 01: And then took only a portion of that, and none of it relating to color, for the alleged satisfaction of step 1C, which relates to the comparing step. [00:16:01] Speaker 01: And then for step 1D, they just rely only on color again. [00:16:05] Speaker 01: And when you look at the observer data and then saying in step 1C, as Judge Dole mentioned, at least a portion of that observer data, and then for step 1D, [00:16:16] Speaker 01: Comparing said observer data referring back to 1a then that is the data that was originally identified I'm just gonna make it a little simpler for myself. [00:16:25] Speaker 03: I think I'm following you, but I just want to make sure so for 1a They said observer data included a multitude of things Color being one of them and what was the other? [00:16:36] Speaker 03: What was the portion one color and oh, there's depth data this position Yeah, but what was one that they focused on for a portion of? [00:16:43] Speaker 01: For a portion, for step point C, that's the depth. [00:16:45] Speaker 03: OK. [00:16:46] Speaker 03: So let's just say observer data is color and depth. [00:16:50] Speaker 03: Then you go to one C, which is a portion of the observer data. [00:16:53] Speaker 03: It is completely appropriate for them to extract depth at that point. [00:16:56] Speaker 03: And then one D says the observer said observer data again. [00:17:00] Speaker 03: So it's got to be depth and color. [00:17:02] Speaker 03: It's got to be all the things, but it's got to at least be depth and color, like in my hypo, right? [00:17:07] Speaker 01: Exactly. [00:17:08] Speaker 03: OK. [00:17:08] Speaker 03: Anything else? [00:17:09] Speaker 01: No. [00:17:10] Speaker 01: On that point, I will note that the [00:17:12] Speaker 01: The patent office, also in an IPR involving take two, came to that same conclusion, we believe, unsurprisingly. [00:17:19] Speaker 01: And that's cited in our briefs, appendix 1365. [00:17:25] Speaker 01: Moving to the sequences. [00:17:28] Speaker 02: Sticking to this, just curious, what's wrong with the other side's position, which is [00:17:34] Speaker 02: They meet the claim construction for observer data as to each one of the limitations that's referencing observer data. [00:17:45] Speaker 01: Because there's two things wrong with it. [00:17:47] Speaker 01: One is that they have identified more. [00:17:50] Speaker 01: This is a case in which their own expert has conceded that there is more than just that observer data. [00:17:55] Speaker 01: We have to look at all the observer data that's provided in step 1a. [00:18:00] Speaker 01: And there's no dispute about that. [00:18:02] Speaker 01: If there could hypothetically be a case where they tried to rely only on color, we would say there's no way you can satisfy step 1c if you do that and then achieve the objects. [00:18:13] Speaker 01: The inventions as shown, for example, in column 3 of 822 patent, lines 25 through 30, where they talk about this being the summary of the invention is to perform this process. [00:18:25] Speaker 02: Taking you outside of the patent, my question is really more just a general patent law question. [00:18:30] Speaker 02: which is as a theoretical patent law matter, if they can find a way to point to something in your accused product that meets each limitation of observer data in isolation, even though they're not pointing to the same thing each time, why isn't that good enough? [00:18:52] Speaker 01: I think it's because of the way the claim is written with said observer data. [00:18:56] Speaker 01: They could have said at least a portion. [00:18:58] Speaker 01: They did this in step 1c. [00:19:00] Speaker 01: They said they compared at least a portion of the observer data with at least a portion of the lighting data. [00:19:05] Speaker 00: Are you familiar with any Federal Circuit cases that support your interpretation? [00:19:11] Speaker 01: With respect to said. [00:19:13] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:19:14] Speaker 00: In this argument, you're an answer to Judge Chen's question. [00:19:19] Speaker 01: I believe they're consistent with the cases that we've, and I confess I do not have the names on the tip of my tongue that we cited in our brief on how you look back. [00:19:27] Speaker 01: This is a relation back. [00:19:28] Speaker 01: The anaphoric is the one that sticks in my memory. [00:19:31] Speaker 01: Like Baldwin? [00:19:32] Speaker 01: Exactly. [00:19:32] Speaker 01: It's an anaphoric phrase. [00:19:37] Speaker 01: The other, I hope I've answered your question. [00:19:40] Speaker 01: On sequence of steps, briefly, there is [00:19:50] Speaker 01: This is important. [00:19:51] Speaker 01: I mentioned column three of the specification talking about, in the summary of the invention, that the whole way that you speed up the process. [00:20:00] Speaker 01: And we're talking about 20 years ago when this patent was filed. [00:20:04] Speaker 01: You only want to compare once at the end. [00:20:07] Speaker 01: And so you perform the process for each light. [00:20:11] Speaker 01: You do the comparing and storing and comparing and storing. [00:20:13] Speaker 01: And only at the end do you do the combining step. [00:20:17] Speaker 01: This there's been quite a bit of [00:20:23] Speaker 01: discussion in plaintiff's briefing about hypothetical combination steps in the middle, arguments that were not raised in the district court, arguments that we believe had been waived. [00:20:33] Speaker 01: In the district court below, there was a series of events, kind of a lemony snicket if we're doing movies, a series of unfortunate events, in the sense that there was a shift during oral argument in summary judgment. [00:20:46] Speaker 01: There was a raise to hypothetical of just color data, which we believe is not borne out by the record. [00:20:51] Speaker 01: Then plaintiffs dropped. [00:20:53] Speaker 01: all of the dependent claims in the case after Judge Lin, the district court, raised the inconsistency between the way the dependent claims are structured and what was being claimed with respect to the observer data. [00:21:11] Speaker 01: And then for the sequences steps, [00:21:16] Speaker 01: We identified from Mr. Aliaga, their expert, own deposition testimony and expert report where he admitted, he conceded this, that there was a combining step that was happening before the finishing of the processing of the first light and before all of the lights have been processed as required by the sequence. [00:21:37] Speaker 01: I do want to say a word about comprising. [00:21:39] Speaker 01: There's been a suggestion that because the claim has open-ended language with respect to comprising, [00:21:46] Speaker 01: that they should be able to add different things in, including potentially intermediate combining steps. [00:21:52] Speaker 01: We don't believe that's appropriate. [00:21:53] Speaker 01: The sequence of steps is in the claim. [00:21:55] Speaker 01: You're not supposed to alter that sequence. [00:22:01] Speaker 01: based on that. [00:22:02] Speaker 01: And Your Honors, unless you have any other questions at this point, I think we'll stand on. [00:22:07] Speaker 03: What an excellent note that was. [00:22:09] Speaker 03: Thank you very much, Councilor Patel. [00:22:12] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:22:14] Speaker 03: So all right, we have some rebuttal time. [00:22:16] Speaker 03: Mr. Buter, please proceed. [00:22:19] Speaker 04: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:22:22] Speaker 04: uh... if anyone was reading out to be at least uh... limitation is just a little bit unfortunate she read out her own limitation when she said it had to be all of the observer data and and not [00:22:36] Speaker 04: the minimum at least the color of data. [00:22:39] Speaker 04: So we have never argued that the term at least should be read out of the claims to the contrary. [00:22:44] Speaker 03: But what did you argue for infringement purposes was the observer data for claim 1A purposes? [00:22:50] Speaker 04: OK, for claim 1A, observer data in gross, as I call it, included about six items. [00:22:56] Speaker 04: There was albedo, normal, vector, depth. [00:23:00] Speaker 04: I can't remember them all off the top of my head. [00:23:01] Speaker 03: And then for 1C, you argued depth satisfied. [00:23:04] Speaker 04: That's a portion of observer data, yes. [00:23:06] Speaker 03: And then for 1D, why aren't you stuck with all of them? [00:23:08] Speaker 04: Because the minimum requirement is at least the color of objects, data representing at least the color of objects. [00:23:18] Speaker 04: So when the patent D drafted the claim, [00:23:22] Speaker 04: he or she made sure that although you could have an alphabet going from a to z and there's many pieces of observer data as we identify them when it comes to the claim requirements observer data means one thing at a minimum color data at a minimum and so there it could include a whole bunch of things but it had to include that minimum requirement [00:23:44] Speaker 04: which our evidence showed did for claim 1D, and which our evidence, which was not disputed as to claim 1C, did. [00:23:52] Speaker 04: And so once again, the key here is that there is observer data in the gross, which is shown in step 1A, as to all of the observer data provided. [00:24:02] Speaker 04: But for purposes of claim 1C and 1D, the court, with agreement by everybody, defined it as a minimum, at least, for the color of data. [00:24:13] Speaker 04: But the judge on her own on page, I think, appendix page 14 said it could include many other things. [00:24:21] Speaker 04: So the definition of observer data for 1C and 1D was at least the color of data, not all of the observer data. [00:24:31] Speaker 04: That is abundantly clear. [00:24:33] Speaker 04: And so there's no inconsistency there of having the gross observer data provided in 1A [00:24:39] Speaker 04: But observer data for purposes of 1D and 1C defined as at least the color of data. [00:24:45] Speaker 04: And I would say it applies to 1A as well, because the collection of observer data in 1A included the color of data. [00:24:54] Speaker 04: The observer data that a portion of was taken in 1C was the observer data including color, but including depth and other things. [00:25:04] Speaker 04: And then in 1D, [00:25:05] Speaker 04: the observer data, which was at least the color of data, we identified the color of data. [00:25:11] Speaker 03: Okay, I'm sorry, Your Honor, thank you very much.