[00:00:00] Speaker 01: Reveal it to our second case, number 23, 1916, Waitricity Corporation versus Inductive Inc. [00:00:10] Speaker 03: Okay, Mr. Vivarelli. [00:00:13] Speaker 03: Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court. [00:00:15] Speaker 03: Dan Vivarelli. [00:00:17] Speaker 03: With that so long, on behalf of Waitricity Corporation, with me is my colleague, Aaron Kamley. [00:00:22] Speaker 03: There are two issues for appeal here today. [00:00:25] Speaker 03: The first is the court should reverse the board's obvious finding that Stark renders the challenge it claims obvious because the board intentionally ignores portions of Stark that are necessary to understand what it teaches to one of ordinary skill in the art. [00:00:40] Speaker 03: The second issue is, should the court reach it, that the court should reverse and remand because the board abused its discretion by failing to consider Waitressi's so-reply argument related to increasing Q, which was a timely argument that flowed from its prior arguments and directly responded to the reply. [00:01:01] Speaker 04: Is the only obviousness issue on appeal the question of whether a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine or modify Stark's [00:01:10] Speaker 04: prototype system with Q values greater than 100. [00:01:14] Speaker 03: Yes, Your Honor. [00:01:15] Speaker 03: That is really the issue for appeal. [00:01:17] Speaker 03: The question of whether the skilled artisan would have appreciated the first six chapters and start the theoretical modeling that he did and the disclosures with respect to figures 4.3 and 3.9. [00:01:32] Speaker 03: and implemented them, or it would have been obvious to implement them into the prototype that he built in chapters seven and eight of the master's thesis. [00:01:41] Speaker 03: And our position is it would not, because what the board is effectively... It sounds like a fact issue. [00:01:49] Speaker 01: And we're not here to find the facts. [00:01:51] Speaker 01: So why couldn't the board permissibly reach the conclusion that it did? [00:01:56] Speaker 03: Because it violated the principles of this court's decision in Bausch and Rome, where it applied the wrong obviousness standard. [00:02:06] Speaker 03: It only relied on the portions favorable to it. [00:02:09] Speaker 03: And it ignored everything else about start that says that the theoretical modeling does not necessarily work in [00:02:18] Speaker 03: the real systems that he built. [00:02:20] Speaker 03: And so it will not be obvious to an ordinary artisan to obtain the Q values. [00:02:26] Speaker 03: I understand the question. [00:02:28] Speaker 03: It's important to understand that Q values are not something that are selected. [00:02:31] Speaker 03: They're the result of all of the input parameters of the circuit. [00:02:36] Speaker 03: And so you can't just say that a Q value is, I'm going to put 1,000 in. [00:02:42] Speaker 03: You have to build a circuit and you may get a number out. [00:02:45] Speaker 03: And in fact, if you look at Stark and his conclusions, he only got, not understanding his theoretical modeling, [00:02:53] Speaker 03: He only got to Q values as high as 34. [00:02:57] Speaker 03: And he said that in his position, the upper limit would be 87. [00:03:01] Speaker 03: And so it's not obvious to take his theoretical model. [00:03:06] Speaker 01: He said the upper limit would be 87? [00:03:08] Speaker 01: Where did he say that? [00:03:09] Speaker 03: He said the upper limit would be at Appendix 1685, that's Stark 129. [00:03:14] Speaker 03: Which volume of the appendix is this? [00:03:17] Speaker 03: That would be the second volume, Your Honor. [00:03:20] Speaker 03: 16, 29, 85, Your Honor. [00:03:22] Speaker 03: 16, 84. [00:03:23] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:03:25] Speaker 02: This is a long thesis. [00:03:32] Speaker 02: Okay, so where did she say that the upper limit is 85? [00:03:46] Speaker 03: In the second paragraph, [00:03:50] Speaker 03: This yields Q2 equals 87. [00:03:52] Speaker 03: This is most likely an upper bound to the secondary core of performance. [00:03:57] Speaker 03: And what he's saying here is when he built the system, he got Q values of 34, and then he did some further analysis and said the maximum that he would obtain is 87. [00:04:10] Speaker 04: But I thought at least in reading the red wreath in footnote five, I was seeing values higher than 87 at least represented in footnote [00:04:21] Speaker 03: The only values higher than 87 come from any disclosures in the theoretical modeling, which we submit he never could obtain, and he says could not be obtained. [00:04:32] Speaker 03: And so what really is going on is, if you look at Figure 4-3, [00:04:38] Speaker 03: which is the supposed motivation for combining the values in Figure 3-9. [00:04:42] Speaker 03: 3-9 merely says Q1 equals Q2 equals 1,000. [00:04:48] Speaker 04: What page of the appendix is Figure 4-3? [00:04:51] Speaker 03: Figure 4-3. [00:04:52] Speaker 04: You told me to look at Figure 4-3. [00:04:54] Speaker 03: Sure, sure, sure. [00:04:55] Speaker 03: 4-3 is Appendix 1657 in the same volume. [00:05:10] Speaker 03: So in figure 4.3, this is the supposed motivation for including the values in 3.9. [00:05:18] Speaker 03: And what the board says is that figure 4.3 represents the fact that there's no theoretical limit to the increasing of values because increasing values increases efficiency. [00:05:30] Speaker 03: But the problem is that right here in the same page, he also says save for the constraints on Q and the coupling coefficient, which is referred to as K. [00:05:40] Speaker 01: And so he's saying in a real world system... Well, there may be some constraints, but I don't know why 1685 is necessarily saying that 85 is the upper limit in all circumstances as opposed to the upper limit in a particular situation that he's addressing in that paragraph. [00:05:59] Speaker 01: Did your expert address this language on 1685? [00:06:06] Speaker 01: I don't believe our expert had to address it because Stark himself addresses it. [00:06:10] Speaker 01: The answer is he didn't. [00:06:12] Speaker 01: We're not experts here. [00:06:15] Speaker 01: I understand. [00:06:16] Speaker 01: We're not charged with finding the facts. [00:06:19] Speaker 01: And we have to rely on the record that you made. [00:06:21] Speaker 01: You're telling me there's no expert testimony. [00:06:23] Speaker 01: supporting the argument that you just made. [00:06:26] Speaker 03: There's an argument that this was Stark's upper limit and that one of them is standing up. [00:06:33] Speaker 04: The only reason that the board gets where it is... Can you answer this question directly? [00:06:36] Speaker 04: Is there no expert testimony supporting the argument that you just made? [00:06:40] Speaker 03: There is not expert testimony supporting the argument we just made. [00:06:45] Speaker 03: And so just finishing the thought with respect to 3, 9, the fact that the Q1 equals Q2 equals 1,000 is an arbitrary selection that Stark made to generate a pole-zero plot when he was attempting to create a geometrical shape so that he could- Okay, but that's your argument, but the board made a fact-finding that that's not the case. [00:07:09] Speaker 01: and that the figure with a value of a thousand could translate into a real-world situation. [00:07:16] Speaker 01: What are we supposed to do about that? [00:07:18] Speaker 01: I mean, you come here and you say, that's not true, but there's evidence to support what the board said. [00:07:23] Speaker 03: There's evidence to support what the board said with respect to the fact that, yes, Figure 3.9 does include that disclosure, but the remainder of what it says about Figure 3.9 should not and could not lead the board to conclude that that is an intended operational specification that could be implemented into Stark's prototype. [00:07:43] Speaker 03: And that's what the board is ignoring in its decision. [00:07:47] Speaker 03: It always cites whatever it [00:07:49] Speaker 03: discredits one of our arguments always cites to the fact that there's no fundamental limit to the increased efficiency. [00:07:56] Speaker 03: And so what it's really doing is it's only looking at the theoretical modeling that's being done. [00:08:01] Speaker 04: What is your best support in the record for the argument that you're making? [00:08:05] Speaker 03: It would be with respect to our contentions, or the board called our contentions 6, 8, and 10, that [00:08:15] Speaker 03: First of all, Q1, Q2 equals 1,000 is not an intended operational specification to be put in. [00:08:24] Speaker 04: Do you have an appendix page that provides your best support in the record for the argument you're making right now? [00:08:32] Speaker 03: I don't off the top of my head, Your Honor. [00:08:37] Speaker 03: And so our position is that under the Bausch and Loehm case, when you're looking at a reference, you can't [00:08:45] Speaker 03: ignore the parts that are teaching what might motivate or what might be a disclosure to end up and what is going on in Stark in particular in this case is... I don't think they ignored the other part of Stark. [00:09:01] Speaker 01: They talked about [00:09:03] Speaker 01: You may not agree with what they said, but they didn't ignore it. [00:09:06] Speaker 03: Well, our position, Your Honor, is that they do ignore it because they only focus on the statement that there's no fundamental limit to increased efficiency, and they don't ever discuss the real-world constraints that Stark acknowledged, and then he could not get to a system of greater Q1 or Q2 is greater than 100. [00:09:26] Speaker 03: And I'd like to briefly also address my argument that the board abuses discretion by failing to consider a surreply argument. [00:09:36] Speaker 03: And it's pretty clear what happened here in our view that we, in our patented response, we argued that... In your surreply, you didn't... [00:09:48] Speaker 01: provide any additional expert testimony, right? [00:09:50] Speaker 01: We did not. [00:09:51] Speaker 03: In fact, we said it back to our Patent Owner's Response and to the petitioner's reply. [00:09:56] Speaker 01: This is on the beats point, right? [00:09:58] Speaker 01: Yes, correct, Your Honor. [00:09:59] Speaker 01: Okay, so where did you present evidence that if you had too many beats that the system wouldn't work? [00:10:07] Speaker 03: We repeatedly said it to it in the Patent Owner's Response. [00:10:10] Speaker 01: You're just relying on Stark. [00:10:12] Speaker 01: You didn't have any statement by an expert or testimony by an expert. [00:10:16] Speaker 01: that having too many beats would result in operability. [00:10:21] Speaker 03: That's correct. [00:10:22] Speaker 03: That is not in the record, Your Honor. [00:10:23] Speaker 03: But Stark himself said that too many beats could render the system useless. [00:10:28] Speaker 03: And that's the point we were making. [00:10:29] Speaker 03: He starts off. [00:10:29] Speaker 03: I didn't say that. [00:10:30] Speaker 03: Where is it? [00:10:31] Speaker 03: That is Stark. [00:10:33] Speaker 03: He starts off by saying that at appendix 1647. [00:10:37] Speaker 03: What page? [00:10:39] Speaker 03: 1647, I believe. [00:10:41] Speaker 02: Same value. [00:10:42] Speaker 02: This is where Stark says if you have too many beats, it renders the output useless. [00:10:46] Speaker 02: That's what I just heard you say. [00:10:48] Speaker 03: So what he says, Your Honor, and what we pointed out in our pattern to remember his response is that Stark says that increasing Q could drastically increase the number of beats, okay? [00:11:04] Speaker 03: And then, [00:11:05] Speaker 01: So where does he say an increased number of beats would render it inopportune? [00:11:12] Speaker 01: That would be 1763. [00:11:13] Speaker 01: He says it increases the number of beats. [00:11:16] Speaker 01: Well, that's not the same thing as saying it renders it inopportune. [00:11:19] Speaker 03: Well, and then in Appendix, I believe it is 30 in letter volume, they say that you can increase Q. [00:11:35] Speaker 03: And it's a suitable way to do it. [00:11:37] Speaker 03: And then it starts 30 through 33, which is appendix 1586 through 1588. [00:11:53] Speaker 03: Stark says that there are things that can happen when the energy is being transferred that could render the system useless. [00:12:03] Speaker 03: And so the point that we were making on solar ply was Stark knew that increasing the number of beats, increasing Q would drastically increase the number of beats. [00:12:14] Speaker 03: And what we said in solar ply is he also knew that there were energy transfer [00:12:23] Speaker 03: Things could happen in the energy transfer that could render the system useless. [00:12:27] Speaker 01: Okay, but you have made the connection where he said that having too many beats would render the system useless. [00:12:34] Speaker 01: I don't see the evidence. [00:12:36] Speaker 01: I don't see that Stark said that. [00:12:38] Speaker 01: You certainly didn't have any expert testimony, right? [00:12:42] Speaker 03: We do believe that Stark said it. [00:12:45] Speaker 03: There is not an expert testimony directly on point. [00:12:47] Speaker 03: That's correct, Your Honor. [00:12:51] Speaker 04: Didn't the board also address the argument, to some extent, on Appendix Page 46? [00:12:57] Speaker 03: Our opposition there is that is just a conclusory paragraph that is not consistent with what this court expects from Henry and evasive. [00:13:08] Speaker 03: And the conclusory paragraph effectively says, [00:13:13] Speaker 03: Well, there's no disclosure in Stark that it would, sorry, there's no disclosure in Stark that it would render the system useless. [00:13:21] Speaker 03: But they don't explain themselves at all either. [00:13:25] Speaker 03: And then they try to justify it by saying that any disadvantage from drastically increasing the number of beats [00:13:34] Speaker 03: would be trade-off with the advantages in our position there is you have to explain more than that because if the disadvantage is that the prototype would be rendered useless as Stark knew it could be, then that would not be a trade-off. [00:13:48] Speaker 02: That is a useless prototype. [00:13:51] Speaker 02: What's the best line from Stark that says, [00:13:55] Speaker 02: to us that too many beats renders the thing useless. [00:14:01] Speaker 02: What's the best line? [00:14:03] Speaker 02: What's the best quotable quote? [00:14:07] Speaker 03: You have to combine the teachings of 1763 [00:14:13] Speaker 03: in the appendix, which is start 207, with the teachings of pages 30 through 33, which say that when you have these volt output waveforms, the shapes of the output waveform matter, and you can render the systems. [00:14:27] Speaker 02: Okay, there is no quotable quote. [00:14:30] Speaker 02: Why didn't you argue in your patent owner response? [00:14:33] Speaker 02: the very thing that you argued in your sir reply, that is, that too many beats in a waveform renders the output useless. [00:14:41] Speaker 02: How come you didn't say that part in your patent owner response? [00:14:45] Speaker 02: Because we took the position that too many [00:14:51] Speaker 03: beats, increasing Q, we were talking about the consequences of increasing Q. And one of the consequences was drastically increasing the number of beats. [00:15:03] Speaker 03: And then in response to what the petitioner said in reply, we argued that, well, at a minimum, stark new year that could render the system useless as well. [00:15:13] Speaker 03: Can I see that amount of my time? [00:15:15] Speaker 03: I was remembering time for bubble. [00:15:16] Speaker 01: Well, you don't have any remaining time, but we'll give you a minute. [00:15:24] Speaker 01: Okay, Mr. Zucker. [00:15:50] Speaker 00: Go ahead. [00:15:50] Speaker 00: Good morning, and may it please the court. [00:15:52] Speaker 00: As your honor has noted, Waitricity's argument here does nothing more than attempt to re-argue the facts that have already been decided by the board, which is inappropriate on substantial evidence review. [00:16:03] Speaker 00: It's undisputed in this case that Stark discloses a prototype that meets every claim element other than having a quality factor greater than 100. [00:16:12] Speaker 00: And it's also undisputed that Stark expressly discloses Q factors greater than 100, including Q equal to 1,000, [00:16:19] Speaker 00: in its earlier chapters. [00:16:21] Speaker 00: The board therefore found that there would have been a motivation to modify Stark's prototype to use the higher Q values taught in its earlier chapters, and that's supported by substantial evidence including Stark's express teaching of Q equals 1,000, Stark's statement that higher Q leads to higher energy transfer efficiency, and Stark's express statement that the reader can use the results of the previous chapters to design a coupled resonant system tailored to a specific use. [00:16:49] Speaker 04: Is your primary alliance for the Q equals 1,000 figure three dash nine? [00:16:54] Speaker 00: That is our primary alliance, but it is not the only one. [00:16:57] Speaker 00: It contains a half dozen additional graphs that discuss Q values greater than 100. [00:17:01] Speaker 00: Those are collected on page 24 of our red brief. [00:17:05] Speaker 00: And the corroborating evidence that we submitted also shows that there is nothing new or novel [00:17:09] Speaker 00: about Q greater than 100. [00:17:12] Speaker 00: In fact, Dr. Young explains that it's been known for decades to have Q values greater than 100. [00:17:18] Speaker 00: And in fact, some of the supporting evidence here shows that Q values in the tens of thousands or in the 100 thousands were commercially available as far back as 1955. [00:17:27] Speaker 00: So as Dr. Young testified and the board credited in this case, a skilled artisan would have been able to use the formulas that Stark provides to achieve a desired Q value, including the Q of 1,000, expressly described in Stark, and would have been motivated to do so [00:17:44] Speaker 00: because increasing Q makes the system transfer energy more efficiently. [00:17:48] Speaker 00: Under the Intel and Distar cases, that's an intrinsic motivation to combine. [00:17:53] Speaker 00: Even if Stark had said nothing further, that would have been sufficient, that higher Q increases the energy transfer efficiency. [00:17:59] Speaker 04: But Stark- Is there anything in Stark about this useless argument that opposing counsel made? [00:18:05] Speaker 00: So the only paragraph in Stark that uses the word useless is from Appendix 1586. [00:18:14] Speaker 00: This is where they quoted that word, useless. [00:18:22] Speaker 00: Excuse me, 1589. [00:18:26] Speaker 00: And the passage states, as the operating frequency of a circuit increases, this manner of response is critical. [00:18:33] Speaker 00: If the circuit's response cannot keep up with the frequency of the source drive, its output is useless. [00:18:38] Speaker 00: So as your honors noted and the board noted, [00:18:41] Speaker 00: This passage doesn't say anything about having high Q. It doesn't say anything about beeps. [00:18:46] Speaker 00: It's directed to an unrelated idea that if you might have some incompatibility between the frequency of your source drive and the operating frequency of your circuit, such that one can't keep up with the other, you could potentially have a useless circuit. [00:18:59] Speaker 00: But Witricity hasn't presented any expert testimony or any evidence to suggest that the proposed modification would do that here, as the board rightly found. [00:19:08] Speaker 04: Is there any written testimony, even non-executive testimony on this? [00:19:13] Speaker 00: There is not. [00:19:14] Speaker 00: The passage that we just pointed is the only thing that white electricity points to for the argument, and it does not support the idea that high Q would result in a useless system. [00:19:23] Speaker 00: To that point, Your Honor, I just want to make clear. [00:19:26] Speaker 00: Judge Dyke asked my friend on the other side whether he had expert testimony to support this specific argument he was making. [00:19:32] Speaker 00: They don't have expert testimony to support any of the arguments they're making because the testimony of their expert is not even in the appendix. [00:19:40] Speaker 00: They admit in their grade brief that they are simply not relying on expert testimony at all, and they haven't submitted any before this Court. [00:19:48] Speaker 00: And so under substantial evidence, the Board was entitled to look at [00:19:53] Speaker 00: Stark's expressed disclosure of Q equals 1,000. [00:19:56] Speaker 00: Stark's statement that the reader should look to previous chapters and to credit what is Dr. Young's undisputed testimony that a person of ordinary skill would have made this modification. [00:20:08] Speaker 00: That's reasonable to support the board's findings under a substantial evidence standard. [00:20:14] Speaker 00: Why did the board initially deny institution? [00:20:18] Speaker 00: So in its patent owner preliminary response, the patent owner made an argument not supported by expert testimony that tried to discount figure 39 on the idea that figure 39 is a mistuned circuit, meaning the primary circuit and the secondary circuit are not tuned to the same frequency. [00:20:41] Speaker 00: The board accepted that attorney argument [00:20:43] Speaker 00: and we move for re-hearing pointing to the language of Stark and the MATLAB code that generates Figure 3-9 to show that that is not true, that Figure 3-9 is actually a tuned circuit and it belongs to the section of Stark that is about tuned circuits and in fact we have addressed this in our expert's declaration that the board had just missed and the board looked at that and said, you're right, we agree, Figure 3-9 is about a tuned circuit so it is relevant here. [00:21:08] Speaker 00: And then in their patent owner response, the patent owner dropped any argument that this was a mistune circuit. [00:21:15] Speaker 00: They said, we're no longer pursuing that. [00:21:19] Speaker 00: There's some related patents here, right? [00:21:21] Speaker 00: There are a number of patents related to this one. [00:21:23] Speaker 00: Not particularly at issue in this case, but yes. [00:21:26] Speaker 00: Are there IPRs on those too? [00:21:29] Speaker 00: There were four other IPRs that were filed at the same time of these. [00:21:34] Speaker 00: All of those have gone final. [00:21:36] Speaker 00: They were not appealed. [00:21:37] Speaker 00: There are a number of other IPRs currently pending that don't have final written decisions yet. [00:21:45] Speaker 01: With overlapping questions to this case, [00:21:47] Speaker 00: No, the only question for this case is whether there is a motivation to modify Stark's prototype to increase Q greater than 100. [00:21:56] Speaker 00: None of the other IPRs as currently filed are relying on Stark. [00:22:00] Speaker 00: So that's a specific question for this case. [00:22:02] Speaker 04: So you agreed with the question I previously asked, Poulsen Council. [00:22:07] Speaker 04: It sounds like you agreed that's the only issue. [00:22:09] Speaker 00: The only question is whether the board's factual finding that there would be a skilled artisan would have been motivated to modify Stark to have Q greater than 100 is supported by substantial evidence. [00:22:21] Speaker 04: And then let me clarify for the record, I also recognize there's the question that they raised about the self-apply and the untimeness of that argument, but that's the only question that was raised [00:22:29] Speaker 00: on the right. [00:22:43] Speaker 00: correctly found that because Patent Owner had not, in its Patent Owner's response, made this argument that SARC would be useless, it was a new argument, and so correctly rejected it on that basis. [00:22:54] Speaker 00: But regardless of whether the argument was new or not, this court can affirm because the board went on to evaluate and reject Mitrocity's argument on its merits. [00:23:05] Speaker 00: Witricity cited six pages of Stark as supposedly demonstrating that high Q would render Stark's system useless. [00:23:14] Speaker 00: And the board looked at them and said, quote, we find no indication by Stark at the portions cited by Patton owner that having Q values of 1,000 would increase the number of beats so high that Stark's system would be rendered useless. [00:23:27] Speaker 00: That's Appendix 46. [00:23:28] Speaker 04: So the opposing council, when I pointed them to Appendix 46, [00:23:33] Speaker 04: describe that paragraph as too conclusory and not giving enough information, what is your response? [00:23:38] Speaker 00: So I disagree. [00:23:39] Speaker 00: It is only two paragraphs, but there's no reason for it to be longer, because what the board says clearly is, Waitricity, you have pointed us to six specific pages for this argument that high Q would generate so many beats, the system would be useless. [00:23:53] Speaker 00: We have looked at those six pages, and they're not there. [00:23:56] Speaker 00: So the factual contention that Waitricity supposedly relies on is simply not present in the cited pages of Stark, and that's sufficient substantial evidence for the board's decision. [00:24:06] Speaker 00: The board's not required to further elaborate and further negate a proposition that simply isn't supported by the cited pages. [00:24:14] Speaker 04: Another argument that I believe was raised in the briefing is about simplifications in the models, describing earlier chapters of Stark, and I think they're trying to say that is [00:24:25] Speaker 04: why Stark might not be able to raise some claims obvious. [00:24:30] Speaker 04: Can you respond to that in particular? [00:24:32] Speaker 00: Sure. [00:24:32] Speaker 00: So the only expert testimony in the record is that a skilled artisan would look at the early chapters of Stark that lay out generalized theory for how a coupled resonance system and understand that those can, in fact, be applied to Stark's prototype. [00:24:47] Speaker 00: And that even if they are simplifications, nonetheless, these are teaching generalized concepts such as high Q increases efficiency. [00:24:54] Speaker 00: And so those concepts are applicable to Stark's prototype. [00:24:58] Speaker 00: That's what Dr. Young testified, and there's no contrary evidence from what you see as expert. [00:25:04] Speaker 00: Unless you're on our side for the questions, we would ask for it to be affirmed. [00:25:07] Speaker 01: Okay. [00:25:07] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:25:10] Speaker 01: Mr. Vitorelli, you've got a minute. [00:25:14] Speaker 03: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:25:15] Speaker 03: I would just like to address the last point that was just discussed, that there is no contradictory evidence about the simplification with respect to the modeling. [00:25:23] Speaker 03: And this is in Appendix 30, the decision quotes our expert's testimony, which says, [00:25:33] Speaker 03: To model your system and things can get very complicated so there was our experts testimony in the record That you can't just take the theoretical models and apply them to the real world systems And ignore all of the constraints of the real world systems that start acknowledged existed Thank you. [00:25:53] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:25:53] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:25:53] Speaker 03: Thank both council cases submitted