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

[00:00:00] Speaker 04:
The next argued case is number 22, 1397, USC IP partnership LP against Meta Platforms Incorporated.

[00:00:10] Speaker 04:
Mr. Landers.

[00:00:12] Speaker 00:
May it please the court.

[00:00:13] Speaker 00:
Your honors, the district court's decision finding the 300 patent invalid under section 101 suffers from a failing that this court has cautioned lower courts about on numerous occasions, oversimplifying the claims.

[00:00:29] Speaker 00:
That is what this court did, oversimplified these claims.

[00:00:33] Speaker 00:
By doing so, the lower court disregarded the claim language, its own claim constructions of that language, and the teachings of the specification.

[00:00:45] Speaker 00:
And there's one quote from the court's opinion, and this is at appendix 10, that I think somewhat sums this up.

[00:00:55] Speaker 00:
Court states, quote, unlike the hyperlink problem addressed in DDR holdings, which did not have a real world and the court omitted problem, the problem the 300 patent attempts to address finding information that matches the user's intent is a longstanding problem that existed long before the advent of computers and is not unique to the internet.

[00:01:17] Speaker 00:
But that's not what these claims are about.

[00:01:20] Speaker 00:
They're not about just finding anyone's intent about anything.

[00:01:24] Speaker 00:
The claims are specific that they are defining the intent of a person who's come to a particular website or web page within a website.

[00:01:34] Speaker 00:
I think it's important for terminology here to understand some of the terminologies used in this patent.

[00:01:39] Speaker 00:
We have websites or namespaces, which is a collection of web pages, and then web pages.

[00:01:46] Speaker 01:
Counselor, on page 10 of your brief, you say that,

[00:01:54] Speaker 01:
The claims of the 300-pan resize-specific systems and methods for improving by creating a new component.

[00:02:04] Speaker 01:
What does that mean?

[00:02:06] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:02:07] Speaker 01:
Are the systems and methods, are you really claiming a new component and apparatus here?

[00:02:13] Speaker 00:
What the claims have is a component within the methods called the intent engine.

[00:02:20] Speaker 00:
That intent engine is a new thing.

[00:02:23] Speaker 00:
It was something that didn't exist in navigating through websites to get to particular web pages.

[00:02:32] Speaker 00:
And in the method claim, that component is claimed within the steps of the method.

[00:02:37] Speaker 00:
We're not claiming that component.

[00:02:39] Speaker 00:
Claim 11 has the tool itself.

[00:02:43] Speaker 00:
But claims one and five are method claims.

[00:02:45] Speaker 00:
Within those claims, there is this component of the intent engine.

[00:02:49] Speaker 00:
And it was a new component.

[00:02:51] Speaker 00:
It hadn't existed before.

[00:02:53] Speaker 00:
And in fact, when you look at the specification in column three, this is appendix 26.

[00:02:58] Speaker 00:
In column three, starting at lines six through 10, the specification specifically says, this tool referring to the intent engine, this tool fills a gap between traditional site navigation.

[00:03:13] Speaker 01:
So is the intent engine, you would argue that that's the claim to advance from the invention?

[00:03:19] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:03:20] Speaker 00:
It's not a claim.

[00:03:21] Speaker 00:
It's a claim to advance.

[00:03:22] Speaker 00:
It's what makes it not abstract.

[00:03:25] Speaker 00:
We relate this to DDR because when I read the court's decisions as to how sometimes we're looking at when things are abstract or not abstract is, are you doing something that's altering what was going on within a computer or in this case, within the internet?

[00:03:40] Speaker 03:
Are you relying on the intent engine for both steps one and step two of the test or just step two?

[00:03:46] Speaker 03:
I want to make sure I understand the scope of your argument.

[00:03:50] Speaker 00:
We're relying on it for both steps one and step two.

[00:03:53] Speaker 00:
Because it's the intent engine that makes this case similar to DDR.

[00:03:58] Speaker 00:
In DDR, you had the situation where on the internet in the past, you go to a website and there's a hyperlink.

[00:04:06] Speaker 00:
And when you click that hyperlink, it removes you from the page you're on and takes you to a new page.

[00:04:11] Speaker 00:
And the inventors in DDR said, well, it doesn't seem like a system we like.

[00:04:14] Speaker 00:
We want to be able to keep you on that page and bring up this new page that you want.

[00:04:19] Speaker 00:
And so what they did is they sent back a hybrid page that included both of them.

[00:04:25] Speaker 00:
What you had in the past here was navigation systems that would require somebody to input a search, for example.

[00:04:33] Speaker 00:
That's referenced in column three.

[00:04:35] Speaker 00:
Faceted navigation, which would be like dropdown menus that you could click on and click on and move and move and move.

[00:04:41] Speaker 00:
And other types of navigation, things like those that I just mentioned.

[00:04:46] Speaker 00:
What this invention said was, we want to be able to have somebody come to a web page, and we're going to try to figure out what do they want by coming to that web page without them having to do all this stuff and then present them with an option.

[00:05:04] Speaker 01:
Do you want to go here?

[00:05:05] Speaker 01:
When does this happen?

[00:05:07] Speaker 01:
When somebody approaches the computer, when somebody sits in the chair?

[00:05:11] Speaker 01:
When is this intent discerned?

[00:05:14] Speaker 00:
So for example, Your Honor, the patent talks about that, again, in column three, this is at line, you could really go from about line 38 through 45, but in particular, line 41 through 43, it's talking about, in this instance, in this example, one example would be when they enter the URL.

[00:05:36] Speaker 00:
So the URL gets entered, now the system,

[00:05:39] Speaker 00:
as described here.

[00:05:41] Speaker 01:
It didn't detect my intent.

[00:05:44] Speaker 01:
I mean, I told it.

[00:05:46] Speaker 00:
You told it the web page you wanted to be on, but not necessarily what you were looking for.

[00:05:51] Speaker 00:
In other words, an example would be, I'm a football fan.

[00:05:56] Speaker 00:
I go to the NFL website.

[00:05:59] Speaker 00:
And this system would possibly bring up

[00:06:04] Speaker 00:
and suggest, oh, I think you might be looking for jerseys, a web page within that website, and make that suggestion to me.

[00:06:13] Speaker 00:
And then I can confirm, yes, I want that, or no, I don't want that.

[00:06:17] Speaker 00:
And then it would alter whatever happens.

[00:06:19] Speaker 00:
Or if I do want it, it would then provide me a link to that page so I could get there without me having to search, without me having to enter anything.

[00:06:29] Speaker 00:
That's what this invention did.

[00:06:31] Speaker 00:
And at the time of this invention, that didn't exist.

[00:06:34] Speaker 00:
in the world of navigating through websites.

[00:06:38] Speaker 00:
And so that's why we believe this case is very akin to DDR, because it was altering how you move through websites, how a user can navigate through those websites.

[00:06:50] Speaker 01:
Does it improve how you navigate?

[00:06:54] Speaker 00:
I don't know if you can call it an improvement.

[00:06:58] Speaker 00:
But what it is is a way for you to more quickly and efficiently get a user to the information they want.

[00:07:06] Speaker 00:
And that is one of the things this board has said.

[00:07:08] Speaker 01:
Why is that not just simple manipulation of information?

[00:07:14] Speaker 00:
Well, I think in a general sense, the internet generally is just a manipulation of information.

[00:07:20] Speaker 00:
But I don't think this is a manipulation of information because what you're trying to do is use, as it's described in column three,

[00:07:27] Speaker 00:
statistical information to determine when somebody comes here, they probably want X. So I'm going to present them with X. So you are not just manipulating information.

[00:07:40] Speaker 00:
You're actually moving them to places where you think they want to be without them necessarily providing you the information that says, like in a search engine, I want X. Now, do the claims themselves actually explain how the intent engine does that?

[00:07:59] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, I think the steps of the claims are what the intent engine is going through.

[00:08:04] Speaker 00:
But I would agree.

[00:08:06] Speaker 00:
The claims do not have, for example, programming steps of the intent engine in them.

[00:08:13] Speaker 00:
But it is the process with which is going to be happening within this system.

[00:08:19] Speaker 00:
And I think for the 101 analysis, what's important is, is it abstract?

[00:08:24] Speaker 00:
In other words, was it there before, or are we usurping something that you can't do?

[00:08:29] Speaker 00:
And that's not happening here.

[00:08:31] Speaker 00:
What we have done is provided a more efficient system to the end user to be able to get to the information they want in a new and different way than had existed before.

[00:08:46] Speaker 00:
And that is where I think the court really oversimplified this.

[00:08:50] Speaker 00:
And frankly, the defendant oversimplifies it.

[00:08:53] Speaker 00:
I know their analogy is to a librarian.

[00:08:56] Speaker 00:
But if you take that analogy to its fullest extent,

[00:08:58] Speaker 00:
Here what it would mean would be, not that you walk into the library and you tell them, I'm in class 404, what books do I need?

[00:09:06] Speaker 00:
It's you walk into the library, which is the web page, and they point you to that.

[00:09:14] Speaker 00:
That's what it is.

[00:09:16] Speaker 00:
That doesn't happen at a library.

[00:09:17] Speaker 00:
It's never happened at a library.

[00:09:19] Speaker 00:
You go in and you have to go and look it up, or you have to ask somebody for a particular thing.

[00:09:25] Speaker 01:
If my son comes to me and says, I'm going to go visit a national park, I'm going to go to Yellowstone.

[00:09:32] Speaker 01:
And then I say, well, you ought to also consider the National Arkway Park or Big Bend Park.

[00:09:40] Speaker 01:
Am I addressing the intent?

[00:09:42] Speaker 01:
I've discerned the intent of my son.

[00:09:45] Speaker 00:
Well, I think you've been told the intent of your son at that point in time.

[00:09:50] Speaker 00:
He said, I'm going to go to a national park.

[00:09:52] Speaker 00:
So you now know he wants to visit national parks.

[00:09:56] Speaker 01:
So up to this point, the system hasn't done anything.

[00:09:59] Speaker 00:
I mean, I'm... In your example, your honor?

[00:10:03] Speaker 00:
In your example, I think the system doesn't even come into play because your example, I think, is akin to your son having a search bar on a website and he enters

[00:10:14] Speaker 00:
Big Bend National Park.

[00:10:17] Speaker 00:
And then maybe the search comes up with Big Bend National Park and another national park or whatever it is.

[00:10:23] Speaker 00:
That's what happened.

[00:10:24] Speaker 00:
This is your son goes to a website that may or may not have to do with national parks.

[00:10:31] Speaker 00:
And for whatever reason, there's something about that website that the system has now decided or figured out statistically one way, that people that come here are interested in this and then makes the suggestion to your son about national parks.

[00:10:44] Speaker 00:
without your son saying, this is what I want to do.

[00:10:47] Speaker 01:
That certainly seems abstract to me at step one.

[00:10:52] Speaker 00:
I understand, Your Honor, but it just simply wasn't the way searching was done.

[00:10:57] Speaker 00:
And it wasn't the way navigation was done at this point in time.

[00:11:01] Speaker 00:
And the specification goes into detail.

[00:11:04] Speaker 00:
The entire specification, one of the things the court says that there's no detail about the intent engine.

[00:11:09] Speaker 00:
The entire specification is detailed about the intent engine.

[00:11:13] Speaker 00:
One of the ways you know that this didn't exist is nobody in this case argued during claim construction that there was a plain, ordinary meaning of intent engine.

[00:11:21] Speaker 00:
No one.

[00:11:22] Speaker 00:
The parties looked at specification and agreed to the construction.

[00:11:27] Speaker 00:
And that construction is a software component for collecting and analyzing intent data from visitors.

[00:11:34] Speaker 00:
And it's from visitors to websites.

[00:11:37] Speaker 00:
That software component is described in the specification the only way you can describe software.

[00:11:41] Speaker 00:
It's a software component for what?

[00:11:43] Speaker 00:
It's a software component that would be put into your collection and analyzing the data of visitors to websites.

[00:11:51] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:11:53] Speaker 00:
And that's what it does.

[00:11:54] Speaker 00:
It collects and analyzes intent data.

[00:11:58] Speaker 00:
And then it takes that and allows for navigation in a unique and different way that hadn't happened in the past.

[00:12:08] Speaker 00:
And that's where I think it takes it out of the abstractness.

[00:12:13] Speaker 03:
Do the claims themselves or the claim construction that you just pointed us to tell us anything about how the intent engine actually works or operates?

[00:12:25] Speaker 00:
So, Your Honor, the claims themselves talk about what's going on within the intent engine, but the claims do not delineate, for example, programming steps of the intent engine.

[00:12:38] Speaker 00:
The claims are not addressing that.

[00:12:41] Speaker 00:
Claims are addressing what the intent engine does with information.

[00:12:46] Speaker 01:
What is function?

[00:12:49] Speaker 00:
Yes, these are method claims.

[00:12:51] Speaker 00:
So yes, it's all describing functions of that intent engine and what it is.

[00:12:56] Speaker 01:
We don't see the claims don't say, and the specification doesn't say how it does that.

[00:13:03] Speaker 01:
What's the algorithm?

[00:13:04] Speaker 01:
What are the steps?

[00:13:08] Speaker 00:
Right.

[00:13:09] Speaker 00:
The claims are not claiming the intent engine itself.

[00:13:15] Speaker 00:
That is true.

[00:13:15] Speaker 00:
I can admit that to the court.

[00:13:17] Speaker 00:
The claims are not claiming the intent engine itself.

[00:13:19] Speaker 01:
That's what you told me in the beginning.

[00:13:21] Speaker 01:
That's what the claims are directed to.

[00:13:23] Speaker 01:
And that's step one, Alice.

[00:13:25] Speaker 01:
What are the claims directed to?

[00:13:27] Speaker 01:
You said it's, and the way I understand you, is that it's this intent engine.

[00:13:34] Speaker 01:
I want to be clear.

[00:13:36] Speaker 01:
I don't even know what that means.

[00:13:38] Speaker 01:
What does engine mean?

[00:13:40] Speaker 01:
There's a little combustion engine in there.

[00:13:42] Speaker 01:
Is it motors that run around?

[00:13:45] Speaker 01:
And then the intent also is abstract.

[00:13:52] Speaker 01:
What does that mean?

[00:13:53] Speaker 00:
And I completely agree.

[00:13:54] Speaker 00:
The words themselves, when you hear them, you're thinking, OK, it's intent.

[00:13:58] Speaker 00:
What does it mean?

[00:14:00] Speaker 00:
But there's really no other way to describe what this system did.

[00:14:04] Speaker 00:
because it wasn't using that you had to come in and enter a search or something like that.

[00:14:10] Speaker 00:
This system was about trying to figure out, without being given that information, where somebody wanted to go.

[00:14:18] Speaker 00:
And I would just point out that in DDR, there was no explanation of how DDR did its operations either.

[00:14:25] Speaker 00:
It was to serve a composite web page.

[00:14:27] Speaker 00:
That's all the claim said.

[00:14:28] Speaker 00:
But this court looked to the specification and what the specification said about that composite web page to determine that this was a new operation of the internet in DDR.

[00:14:41] Speaker 00:
I think we have the same thing here.

[00:14:43] Speaker 00:
This is a new operation.

[00:14:45] Speaker 03:
Do you agree that claim one is representative of the claims here?

[00:14:51] Speaker 00:
It's certainly representative of the method claims.

[00:14:53] Speaker 00:
I'm not certain it's representative of claim 11.

[00:14:56] Speaker 00:
But I can admit to the court that the focus of this briefing was really on the method claims and not claim 11.

[00:15:02] Speaker 03:
So in our opinion, you would agree that we can just focus on claim 1?

[00:15:06] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:15:07] Speaker 00:
I would say that's true.

[00:15:09] Speaker 00:
I'm out of time.

[00:15:10] Speaker 00:
I'll save the rest of my time for rebuttal unless there's further questions.

[00:15:12] Speaker 04:
OK.

[00:15:14] Speaker 04:
Good idea.

[00:15:15] Speaker 04:
We'll save it.

[00:15:16] Speaker 04:
We'll save it.

[00:15:17] Speaker 04:
Ms.

[00:15:17] Speaker 04:
Key?

[00:15:18] Speaker 02:
Good afternoon, Your Honors.

[00:15:20] Speaker 02:
Very briefly, I'd just like to take us back to the claim itself.

[00:15:24] Speaker 02:
And the claim itself tells us everything we need to know about how abstract the claim is.

[00:15:29] Speaker 02:
The claim calls for information to be received.

[00:15:33] Speaker 02:
And that information could be something like a web page, or it could be a name of a page.

[00:15:38] Speaker 02:
Then it's processed in order to determine an inferred intent.

[00:15:42] Speaker 02:
We have no explanation of how, no explanation of what's done, just process it.

[00:15:48] Speaker 02:
And then whatever that guess is, is provided in the next step back to the browser.

[00:15:54] Speaker 02:
Then the browser says, did you like my idea?

[00:15:57] Speaker 02:
Did you like my suggestion?

[00:15:59] Speaker 02:
And then it receives that information, processes it again, and then gives another suggestion, sends it back, and says, OK, this time, rank the suggestion.

[00:16:09] Speaker 02:
So that the next time somebody comes to the web page, we can use what you said, yes, I like this, to make a guess about why they're here.

[00:16:16] Speaker 02:
This is exactly like electric power, which talked about receiving, processing, and displaying data.

[00:16:25] Speaker 02:
We know from the specification itself, the specification tells us that its entire gist, this is at appendix 25, column 2, lines 42 through 43, is to collect, analyze, and use intent data.

[00:16:42] Speaker 02:
This is a simple human problem that's being solved of making sure people get the right information so that they are happy with their experience.

[00:16:51] Speaker 02:
And I heard what your honors heard during the opening argument, which is that the intent engine was the whole thing that made this all different.

[00:16:59] Speaker 02:
But we also heard the admission that the intent engine is not an improvement.

[00:17:03] Speaker 02:
We also heard

[00:17:04] Speaker 02:
that there's no description of how the intent engine works in the claims themselves.

[00:17:09] Speaker 02:
In fact, the only thing we know about the intent engine is that it can be programmed on pretty much any processing that you can use.

[00:17:18] Speaker 02:
And we see that in column two as well.

[00:17:21] Speaker 02:
And then we know from the figures that it's nothing more than receive information, process it, and spit it back out, the height

[00:17:30] Speaker 02:
of abstraction.

[00:17:31] Speaker 02:
Another case I would point your honors to that is directly on point is IV versus Capital One, where we're taking in navigation information in order to tailor information to a human being so that they get the information that they want.

[00:17:51] Speaker 02:
That case also had the terms web page and display entered into a claim construction.

[00:17:57] Speaker 02:
That didn't take it out of the realm of the abstract.

[00:18:00] Speaker 02:
That case also had a determination that something that made it dynamic or more efficient was also not enough to take it out of the realm of the abstract.

[00:18:09] Speaker 03:
How do you distinguish DDR?

[00:18:11] Speaker 03:
They spent a lot of time talking about DDR.

[00:18:13] Speaker 03:
How do you distinguish it?

[00:18:14] Speaker 02:
Absolutely, Your Honor.

[00:18:15] Speaker 02:
So DDR actually dealt with a non-human problem.

[00:18:18] Speaker 02:
This was a problem that arose only in the context of the internet.

[00:18:23] Speaker 02:
Because if, for example, you're at Home Depot,

[00:18:26] Speaker 02:
and you go up to the Black & Decker display, and you touch the Black & Decker display, you're not transported to the Black & Decker store.

[00:18:34] Speaker 02:
But on the internet, if you happen to click on a Black & Decker link, you're taking off the Home Depot website, and all of a sudden, the stats were finding that once you're off that website, you're not likely to go back to it, you'd rather buy it from there.

[00:18:48] Speaker 02:
So what the patent owner did there is said, you know what, I'm going to fool the user by creating a new frame

[00:18:56] Speaker 02:
And the frame would make sure that people thought they were still on the website.

[00:19:00] Speaker 02:
So it did change the way in which navigation happened.

[00:19:03] Speaker 02:
When you clicked on the hyperlink in DDR, something different happened.

[00:19:07] Speaker 02:
And that was claimed.

[00:19:08] Speaker 02:
because the claim did talk about creating that frame and making sure that it looked different.

[00:19:13] Speaker 02:
It became a hybrid website.

[00:19:16] Speaker 02:
Here, the problem that's being addressed is not a technological problem that exists only on the internet.

[00:19:22] Speaker 02:
The problem being addressed is making sure a human being gets the information that they want.

[00:19:28] Speaker 02:
Make sure they get to the right place.

[00:19:30] Speaker 02:
The example we use in our brief was a librarian.

[00:19:33] Speaker 02:
He uses an example of the NFL page.

[00:19:35] Speaker 02:
The one I thought of this morning is I'm dressed

[00:19:38] Speaker 02:
in casual attire, and I'm carrying a picnic basket, and I walk into a grocery store, and the greeter says to me, oh, it looks like you're going on a picnic.

[00:19:46] Speaker 02:
Would you like to be sent to the deli?

[00:19:49] Speaker 02:
And I confirm and say yes, and he says, deli, aisle one, and sends me over there.

[00:19:54] Speaker 02:
He guessed what I wanted, and then sent me there.

[00:19:56] Speaker 02:
That's the human problem that's being solved.

[00:19:58] Speaker 02:
That's why DDR doesn't apply.

[00:20:00] Speaker 03:
Do you also agree that we can treat claim one as representative?

[00:20:03] Speaker 02:
Absolutely, Your Honor.

[00:20:06] Speaker 02:
If Your Honors don't have any other questions,

[00:20:08] Speaker 04:
Well, I think we're all right.

[00:20:09] Speaker 04:
I appreciate it, Your Honor.

[00:20:11] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:20:12] Speaker 04:
Please proceed.

[00:20:14] Speaker 00:
I don't know if we should wait for Judge Raina.

[00:20:18] Speaker 04:
He's asked us to continue.

[00:20:20] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:20:22] Speaker 04:
I'm going to be very... If need be, we can repeat.

[00:20:25] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:20:26] Speaker 00:
I'm going to be very brief.

[00:20:29] Speaker 00:
I do think this is an internet problem.

[00:20:31] Speaker 00:
This isn't a problem that you get just anywhere else.

[00:20:34] Speaker 00:
This is a problem of figuring out and helping people more efficiently and quickly get to the web pages that they are seeking.

[00:20:44] Speaker 00:
That is a problem unique to the internet.

[00:20:46] Speaker 00:
It's not a problem you find anywhere else.

[00:20:49] Speaker 00:
because it's the only place the websites and the web pages exist, is on the internet.

[00:20:54] Speaker 00:
This is an internet problem.

[00:20:56] Speaker 00:
And there were other ways to do this, there were other ways to get people to those web pages, but these inventors found that they were less efficient and quick than trying to discern the intent of people when they come to certain web pages as to what else within that website, the bigger website, they might be interested in and get them to those pages quicker.

[00:21:19] Speaker 00:
That is what this invention was about.

[00:21:22] Speaker 00:
The only other thing I would like to just mention is, the opposing council mentioned that this can be used on these platforms.

[00:21:30] Speaker 00:
Well, of course.

[00:21:32] Speaker 00:
Web services are inherently done on certain platforms.

[00:21:37] Speaker 00:
These are the platforms where these tools are initiated.

[00:21:42] Speaker 00:
Patent naturally references those platforms where the tool will operate.

[00:21:48] Speaker 00:
That's what they're there for.

[00:21:50] Speaker 00:
Unless, Your Honor, you have anything further, that's all I have.

[00:21:54] Speaker 04:
Anything that you want to ask?

[00:21:56] Speaker 01:
No, I'm OK.

[00:21:58] Speaker 04:
Any more questions?

[00:22:00] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:22:00] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:22:01] Speaker 04:
Thank you both.

[00:22:02] Speaker 04:
The case is seconded under submission.

[00:22:05] Speaker 04:
And that concludes this panel's arguments for today.