[00:00:00] Speaker 01: The next argument is docket number 24-1414, Motorola, Mobility LLC versus Largan Precision Company. [00:00:12] Speaker 01: Mr. Vandenberg, whenever you're ready. [00:00:14] Speaker 04: May it please the court. [00:00:16] Speaker 04: The board's refusal to consider our ZMAX modeling evidence was an abuse of discretion. [00:00:25] Speaker 04: They did not say that the evidence was irrelevant to motivation. [00:00:30] Speaker 04: And they didn't say they would have ruled the same way had they considered the evidence. [00:00:35] Speaker 04: They said that our reply's reliance on the ZMAX evidence to show motivation was not responsive to Largan's arguments. [00:00:46] Speaker 04: Well, that's baffling because Largan had cited the exact same evidence on the exact same issue of motivation in its patent owner response. [00:00:56] Speaker 04: Now, in our petition, we cited this ZMAX modeling evidence of our expert Mr. Aikens in two sections, each of which were headed [00:01:06] Speaker 04: with an argument that there was a motivation to combine. [00:01:09] Speaker 04: So the petition tied this evidence to motivation. [00:01:13] Speaker 04: And then in response, Largan, and this is Appendix 2724, had a section heading, which I'll quote, a posita would not have been motivated to combine Chung with Sakin. [00:01:29] Speaker 04: And inside that section heading, [00:01:31] Speaker 04: It's specifically Appendix 2732 to 37. [00:01:36] Speaker 04: Largan had six pages of arguments about the ZMAX evidence. [00:01:41] Speaker 04: So again, in their patent owner response, they had six pages of arguments about this same evidence that the board later refused to consider under a section heading of motivation. [00:01:54] Speaker 04: And then I would invite the court's attention to the third volume of the appendix and page appendix 6294. [00:02:04] Speaker 04: This is our reply. [00:02:06] Speaker 04: So petition, we cited CMAX modeling under motivation headings. [00:02:10] Speaker 04: Response, they had six pages talking about the same evidence under motivation heading. [00:02:15] Speaker 04: And here in our reply at 6294, we have this section G at the bottom where we're talking about Mr. Aiken's ZMAX evidence. [00:02:26] Speaker 04: The second line under there refers to POR 33 to 37. [00:02:31] Speaker 04: Those are five of the six pages of Largan's arguments about ZMAX under a motivation heading. [00:02:38] Speaker 04: And at the bottom page, we tie it to motivation. [00:02:41] Speaker 04: The bottom of the page [00:02:42] Speaker 04: We say a posita would have been motivated to apply these teachings. [00:02:46] Speaker 01: So I guess what I'm trying to figure out about this Zmax modeling is it feels like the way it's used and presented here is it's really to confirm obviousness. [00:03:02] Speaker 01: And it's not really a basis for [00:03:06] Speaker 01: explaining why a skilled artisan in the first place would have chosen to make these particular choices to adapt Chung to take on this Sikkim ratio? [00:03:19] Speaker 04: We would submit it's really both, and that goes to whether the error in refusing to consider this evidence was harmless or not. [00:03:26] Speaker 04: And we have three reasons for why this evidence was critical to motivation and needed to be considered first. [00:03:32] Speaker 04: this evidence refutes the board's central finding that we, Motorola, had failed to show that these teachings apply to Chung embodiments in 11 and 12 despite the admitted differences between those embodiments in Chung and the embodiments in Sakine. [00:03:50] Speaker 04: That was a big argument by Largan that, oh, there's differences between these embodiments and therefore the teaching, the R1 over F teaching, does not apply. [00:04:00] Speaker 01: So whether it's [00:04:01] Speaker 01: even combinable at all. [00:04:04] Speaker 04: Yes, and in this field when we say we're combining teachings, the reality is you're combining them in the software. [00:04:11] Speaker 04: The skilled artist is using the software [00:04:15] Speaker 04: They program in Chong 11 and 12, and then they do their optimizations with the Sikene teaching on the wall in front of them. [00:04:23] Speaker 04: Let's make sure this ratio is roughly minus three. [00:04:26] Speaker 04: Let's slowly, step by step, increase the field of view to 115 degrees. [00:04:32] Speaker 04: And as we do it, let's... [00:04:34] Speaker 04: look at this teaching from Sakine in order to limit the hit on track length, etc. [00:04:40] Speaker 04: So the first reason it's relevant is it refutes the central finding that you can't combine these puzzle pieces. [00:04:47] Speaker 04: It shows that you can combine these puzzle pieces, as Posita can, [00:04:51] Speaker 04: And the second argument is that it not only showed that you can combine the puzzle pieces, it showed you could combine them easily. [00:05:00] Speaker 01: We're all in can land, as you know, can or could, and now the real question is why would a skilled artisan have done this in the first place? [00:05:10] Speaker 01: Why would a skilled artisan have, looking at all the prior art out there, [00:05:16] Speaker 01: plucked this one aspect of Sikene and said, I want to use that to make interesting adjustments to Chung to improve the performance of Chung's field of view or image quality or whatever the case may be. [00:05:30] Speaker 01: So I just don't know how the ZMAX evidence pushes forward on that story of why would a skilled artisan at the relevant time period use this aspect of Sikene. [00:05:46] Speaker 04: the motivation Mr. Aikens explained. [00:05:48] Speaker 04: Mr. Aikens explained the motivation. [00:05:50] Speaker 04: He did the ZMAX modeling evidence and it confirmed that his opinions were correct. [00:05:54] Speaker 04: So this was objective scientific evidence confirming the opinion of the expert that the PASIDA would have combined these teachings. [00:06:05] Speaker 01: Second... I thought you said that [00:06:07] Speaker 01: it confirmed that a skilled artisan could combine Sikkim with Chang. [00:06:14] Speaker 01: And that's a very different question than it would. [00:06:18] Speaker 04: Well, it does both, we submit, because again, when the combining would have been done with the software. [00:06:25] Speaker 04: So essentially, the posita had a reason [00:06:31] Speaker 04: to combine these, a reason to start programming it into the system, and that reason included the fact that these systems had a lot in common, the Chung 11 and 12, and Sikene had a lot in common, and that the Sikene teaching went directly to the issue that Chung identified as a problem, namely, when you increase field of view, you have to sacrifice these other considerations. [00:06:52] Speaker 04: The R1 over F teaching went primarily to that, Akins explained that, but then [00:06:58] Speaker 04: In order to actually combine the teachings until you had an actual working product, it can take a hundred hours. [00:07:04] Speaker 04: I believe that's in the Aikens deposition testimony. [00:07:07] Speaker 04: He spent ten hours on one embodiment to show that as the Pesetas started down that path, they would be motivated to continue. [00:07:16] Speaker 04: So I analogize it to a trail that's supposedly going to the summit of a mountain. [00:07:22] Speaker 04: you're motivated, you know, by the original sign, the original teaching saying this is a summit to the mountain, but you're continuing to be motivated to continue down that path if the footing is good, it seems to be rising in elevation, etc. [00:07:35] Speaker 04: So the court has recognized that reasonable expectation of success and motivation to combine are logically associated. [00:07:44] Speaker 04: And we submit here they are extremely intertwined. [00:07:47] Speaker 04: They are extremely logically associated because of the nature in which [00:07:52] Speaker 04: skilled artisans combine the teachings. [00:07:55] Speaker 03: So your argument is that even though Zakine may be sort of relevant, clearly relevant to the expectation of success, there's also relevance to the motivation to combine and the board failed to appreciate that. [00:08:09] Speaker 04: Precisely. [00:08:10] Speaker 04: We'd also, on the relevance, submit that Largan has effectively conceded the point in their red brief [00:08:18] Speaker 04: Largan argued, and this was read brief page 57, they argued, incorrectly we submit, but they argued, quote, Mr. Aiken's ZMAX results tended to disprove motivation. [00:08:31] Speaker 04: Obviously we disagree, but that's an acknowledgement that it is probative on the issue of motivation. [00:08:38] Speaker 04: And we agree [00:08:41] Speaker 04: You know, looking at this one could think, well we sort of have the cart before the horse. [00:08:45] Speaker 04: How could proving that it works motivate you in the first place? [00:08:49] Speaker 04: So we understand that. [00:08:52] Speaker 04: But the board, again, did not find this evidence was irrelevant to motivation. [00:08:58] Speaker 04: The board did not find that this evidence was unreliable. [00:09:01] Speaker 04: The board didn't even acknowledge that this evidence was used by our expert [00:09:06] Speaker 04: to concede, to confirm the expert's views. [00:09:11] Speaker 04: Nor did the board acknowledge, well the board did acknowledge that Positas used these tools. [00:09:17] Speaker 04: That was part of the definition of a Posita. [00:09:19] Speaker 04: The board accepted that. [00:09:21] Speaker 04: So again, you have these skilled artisans. [00:09:24] Speaker 04: They use these tools whenever they want to combine something. [00:09:27] Speaker 04: It was undisputed in effect that there was a motivation to increase the field of view in order to take selfies, etc. [00:09:34] Speaker 04: So that part was undisputed. [00:09:35] Speaker 04: And then I believe it was undisputed that when you increase field of view, there's a tendency to sacrifice image quality and increase the track length. [00:09:44] Speaker 04: The R1 over F teaching, I believe was undisputed, speaks to that issue in Sakine. [00:09:50] Speaker 04: And our experts said the posita would understand. [00:09:54] Speaker 04: And the fact that it worked, we submit, more in response to your questions, Your Honor, Judge Chen, the fact that it worked [00:10:04] Speaker 04: we submit is probative on whether a skilled artisan would know it would work and be motivated and would see benefit. [00:10:12] Speaker 04: The fact that they're skilled, and here our PASIDA has three years of experience using tools like this. [00:10:21] Speaker 04: Three years of experience of taking a design, often beginning in a patent, and optimizing that for whatever purpose they want to improve on it. [00:10:29] Speaker 04: If you have three years of experience and you see this teaching and the reality objective scientific evidence is you can put these pieces together. [00:10:38] Speaker 04: We say that's probative, that this posita would know that. [00:10:41] Speaker 01: You're into your rebuttal, but I did want to ask you about what I thought was the main thesis of the board's opinion, which is it seemed unlikely, and it seemed like hindsight, for a skilled artisan to consult Sakine and pluck this one aspect of Sakine out and plug it into Chung, because [00:11:04] Speaker 01: Chung outperforms Sakine in just about every relevant way. [00:11:08] Speaker 01: It has better field of view. [00:11:10] Speaker 01: It has better image quality. [00:11:12] Speaker 01: It has better track length. [00:11:15] Speaker 01: It has better F number factor. [00:11:18] Speaker 01: So the board said it seemed unlikely that a skilled artisan would consult this overall inferior product to try to improve a superior product. [00:11:33] Speaker 04: And part of the response to that is that a star athlete can still learn from a coach whose skills are less. [00:11:41] Speaker 04: And this particular teaching was uniquely suited for Chung 11 and 12. [00:11:50] Speaker 04: It was the only teaching in Sakine, as the record shows, that was directed to lens systems with the concave negative radius first lens on the object side. [00:12:01] Speaker 04: And that's what Sakine R1 over F teaching is about. [00:12:05] Speaker 04: And then Sakine's own, I believe paragraph 50, if I'm not mistaken, says essentially that its teachings are a la carte teachings, that you don't have to do everything in Sakine. [00:12:18] Speaker 04: Sakine may have been happy with a lower field of view. [00:12:21] Speaker 04: Sikene, the person may have been happy with their results. [00:12:25] Speaker 04: We don't know what Sikene was striving for. [00:12:27] Speaker 04: And therefore, the fact that Sikene's embodiments are not as effective does not mean that its teaching was not applicable. [00:12:38] Speaker 04: And again, their main finding was that we didn't show that this teaching applied [00:12:44] Speaker 04: to Chung 11 and 12, because of the differences in the embodiments, including what Your Honor just recognized. [00:12:50] Speaker 04: And that's what the ZMAX modeling evidence refuted. [00:12:54] Speaker 04: And therefore, it was harmful error. [00:12:56] Speaker 04: We'd ask the court to remand and to correct the other errors that we've briefed. [00:13:03] Speaker 01: OK. [00:13:05] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:13:18] Speaker 05: includes the court, Kevin Russell, on behalf of Appellee Largan Precision Company Limited. [00:13:23] Speaker 05: Let me start with the ZMAX evidence. [00:13:25] Speaker 05: There are two reasons why the refusal to consider that evidence is not reversible error. [00:13:30] Speaker 05: The first is that the board did not abuse its discretion in finding that Motorola raised that argument too late. [00:13:35] Speaker 05: And I'm happy to walk through the briefing to discuss that. [00:13:38] Speaker 05: But I think there is a much easier path forward for the court, which is the questions Judge Chen was asking, which is that Motorola did not show that that [00:13:46] Speaker 05: exclusion was prejudicial, because the most the ZMED's evidence can show is what a person of skill of art and the art would have learned if they had attempted the combination. [00:13:56] Speaker 05: They say they would have learned that it worked, that it was easy, that it was beneficial. [00:14:00] Speaker 05: But the motivation question asks whether they would have attempted that combination in the first place, and that turns on what they knew at the time of the invention. [00:14:09] Speaker 05: And they did not know at the time of the invention what Mr. Aikens would discover in his 2022 experiment seven years later. [00:14:16] Speaker 05: And in fact, [00:14:16] Speaker 05: It's no different than pointing to, for example, a journal article from 2022 pointing out and touting the benefits of the combination. [00:14:25] Speaker 05: That kind of evidence is categorically incompetent to prove motivation because it is not providing information about what a person of skill in the art would have known at the time. [00:14:35] Speaker 05: And the question under KSR is whether the person would have recognized the benefit. [00:14:42] Speaker 01: Mr. Vandenberg is suggesting that maybe there's an inference there, nevertheless, that the successful modeling testing shows that because it can be done and it could be done relatively easily, in his view, there's an inference there that a skilled artisan would be able to recognize that. [00:15:06] Speaker 01: pretty instantly back at the relevant time period. [00:15:09] Speaker 05: I don't think that is a permissible inference, because you could say the same thing about the patent itself. [00:15:14] Speaker 05: The patent shows that the R1F ratio applies to and benefits a system like Chung. [00:15:21] Speaker 05: But I don't think anybody would say that you could cite to the patent itself as showing motivation at the time of the invention. [00:15:27] Speaker 03: So are you saying a person of more or less skill would not have had a reason to even [00:15:34] Speaker 03: sort of plug in the factors to Zmax to see if it's worked or not. [00:15:38] Speaker 05: No, I mean, they've got to point to something that shows that they would do that, and they admit it. [00:15:43] Speaker 03: So without that motivation that there is, even if after the fact it sort of confirms that it would have worked, that doesn't bear on the threshold question. [00:15:57] Speaker 05: I think that's right, because there are lots of teachings out there that you could run through a Zmax system. [00:16:02] Speaker 05: But a person of skill in the art isn't going to do that to decide whether or not to be motivated to do it. [00:16:07] Speaker 05: And Motorola acknowledges that what running that through the ZMAX system is, is combining it. [00:16:11] Speaker 05: That's what you do to combine the arts. [00:16:13] Speaker 03: With respect to the motivation question, obviously there was a very strong argument in the petition about [00:16:24] Speaker 03: the teaching in second aid that could be used to alter and adjust the last limitation in the claims in question, or the last limitation missing from Chung. [00:16:40] Speaker 03: I didn't see anything in the board's opinion that directly addressed that, other than a sentence or two almost in passing. [00:16:50] Speaker 03: There was just a lot of discussion about, well, Chung and Second A are really different. [00:16:56] Speaker 03: They work differently. [00:16:57] Speaker 03: They're different curvatures of different lenses. [00:17:01] Speaker 03: And if you adjust this, you adjust that. [00:17:03] Speaker 03: But there wasn't any sort of spot-on focus on the exact argument that was raised in the petition. [00:17:13] Speaker 03: I'm sorry. [00:17:13] Speaker 03: Can I ask you to clarify what the exact argument you're talking about is? [00:17:16] Speaker 03: The argument that the second aid teaching could be used in combination with childhood to meet the limitations. [00:17:25] Speaker 05: I think that is the very first. [00:17:27] Speaker 05: So the court held that there was no motivation. [00:17:30] Speaker 05: It didn't address reasonable expectation of success. [00:17:33] Speaker 05: So the question was, would a person of skill and the art think, number one, that Sakhine's teaching would apply even to Chung? [00:17:40] Speaker 03: So where in the board's decision do they hit that point? [00:17:44] Speaker 05: That is the very first part of their analysis, which starts at appendix 33 and goes over to 34. [00:17:54] Speaker 05: Give me a second to get there. [00:17:58] Speaker 05: OK, go ahead. [00:18:00] Speaker 05: And it starts at 33, the first full paragraph. [00:18:04] Speaker 05: Although Petitioner points to similarities between Chung and Sakai, there's also significant differences. [00:18:08] Speaker 05: And what they take away from that is on the next page, at the top of the page, it says, Petitioner does not sufficiently address in this proceeding that Chung embodiments 11 and 12 have negative this difference. [00:18:21] Speaker 05: And then it says, these differences in these systems' performances would have led a posita to doubt, or at least question, whether Sakai's teachings would have been useful. [00:18:30] Speaker 05: in Cheung, even considering the alleged similarities. [00:18:32] Speaker 03: And so the board was pointing out that... But there again, and I don't mean to interrupt, but there again, you know, that statement, the difference in these systems' performance would have led Epizetive to doubter this question that, second, his teachings would have been useful in Cheung, even considering their alleged similarities. [00:18:51] Speaker 03: Well, it's sort of a very general overview statement rather than [00:18:58] Speaker 03: a direct reference to the R1 over F question, and that's what I was looking for. [00:19:07] Speaker 05: Let me try answering it in another way. [00:19:08] Speaker 05: If somebody picks up Sakhine, and looks, it's got a bunch of teachings, and one of them is this R1 over F ratio, and they're going to wonder, would that be usefully applied to Chung? [00:19:18] Speaker 05: Now, Sakai doesn't say that this is a universal teaching that applies to every system. [00:19:23] Speaker 05: And so the person has to ask themselves, what would lead me to think that if I were to go through all this work to try to combine them, that it would even work, that it would even apply? [00:19:32] Speaker 05: And what the board said, it is Motorola's obligation to show that there is something that would lead them to think that it might work. [00:19:39] Speaker 05: And all Motorola showed were some surface similarities between the systems. [00:19:44] Speaker 05: And what the court here is saying is you can't just point to those similarities. [00:19:47] Speaker 05: and ignore the differences, which is what Motorola did. [00:19:51] Speaker 02: In essence, you're arguing that there's a threshold step to even go to the reference. [00:19:56] Speaker 02: And the board found you wouldn't even get past that threshold step, because nobody would look to that as a teaching that's relevant. [00:20:04] Speaker 02: So no motivation to come on. [00:20:06] Speaker 05: That's right. [00:20:07] Speaker 05: The board made two kinds of comments. [00:20:09] Speaker 02: And we don't even have to agree with that, right? [00:20:21] Speaker 02: substantial evidence. [00:20:23] Speaker 05: That's right. [00:20:23] Speaker 05: And it isn't based on any legal error. [00:20:25] Speaker 05: Now, Motorola says that it's based on legal error because they should have considered the ZMAX evidence. [00:20:31] Speaker 02: But setting that aside, it sounds like they addressed it to some extent anyway. [00:20:36] Speaker 05: Yes. [00:20:36] Speaker 02: And if it lacks substantial evidence, that means no reasonable person could come up with that conclusion. [00:20:44] Speaker 05: That's right. [00:20:45] Speaker 05: And I think that the board is eminently reasonable in thinking that the surface similarities that [00:20:50] Speaker 05: they pointed to would not lead somebody to think that this is going to apply to Chung, given the differences in the systems. [00:20:58] Speaker 01: I guess aside from Judge Hughes's question, which brings out this threshold question about whether a skilled artist would look at SIGCHI in the first place, is there something in the board's decision, board's analysis, that takes on [00:21:18] Speaker 01: specifically what I understood the petition to be saying, which is, yes, a skilled artisan would take this one teaching from Sakhine about the ratio because you could [00:21:31] Speaker 01: improve and further widen your field of view while still preserving and maintaining image quality? [00:21:38] Speaker 05: So the board had a second set of findings. [00:21:39] Speaker 05: Number one, it said Motorola didn't prove that somebody would think it would apply in the first place. [00:21:44] Speaker 05: Then they had a set of findings that nobody would think that it would improve the balance in any respect because they wouldn't think that it, because Motorola at page 20 of its reply brief disavows [00:21:54] Speaker 05: that anybody would use Sakine to increase the field of view. [00:21:57] Speaker 05: Instead they say it will simply mitigate the damage to track length and image quality while using other teachings to increase field of view. [00:22:05] Speaker 05: But you can set aside track length because the board found, and they don't challenge, but for lack of substantial evidence, that Sakine teaches a limited solution to a track length problem that Chun doesn't have. [00:22:17] Speaker 05: So then we're just left with image quality and the board credited our expert's testimony that she, quote, [00:22:24] Speaker 05: saw no evidence that images from combined Chung and Sakine systems would have been equal to or higher quality than either system standing alone. [00:22:32] Speaker 05: And that's, I think, sufficient substantial evidence to support the board's conclusion that a person of skill in the art wouldn't think that combining Sakine with Chung would improve any aspect of the features that Motorola points to as allegedly providing the motivation to combine. [00:22:52] Speaker 05: I'm happy to discuss the other issues in the case, but the court doesn't have any further questions. [00:23:21] Speaker 04: On the issue of whether the board truly considered motivation per Judge Lynn's initial question, I'd invite the court's attention to the volume two of the appendix, the institution decision. [00:23:34] Speaker 04: This is Appendix 2564, and there the board recognized the motivation, 2564, said that the PASIDA would use a lens design program to balance between competing objectives. [00:23:49] Speaker 04: The objective is to balance a short track length, a wide field of view, and improved image quality. [00:23:56] Speaker 04: And then patent owner does not explain why a posita would not accept sacrifices in some of the criteria in order to get a wider field of view. [00:24:06] Speaker 04: And then in the final written decision, they did a U-turn and didn't really go back to revisit that. [00:24:11] Speaker 04: So they accepted the overall motivation and did a U-turn. [00:24:17] Speaker 04: In terms of, my friends basically suggest, if I understood correctly, that this evidence, the cart before the horse, the ZMAX evidence, cannot be probative of motivation. [00:24:27] Speaker 04: I'll again repeat that their red brief on page 57 [00:24:32] Speaker 04: our view admitted that there was probative by saying that, oh, the Zmax evidence shows no motivation. [00:24:38] Speaker 04: Well, if it can show no motivation under their incorrect theory, it can show motivation. [00:24:43] Speaker 04: And as far as the expert, the expert simply didn't come up with some new test years after the fact to show that it worked. [00:24:52] Speaker 04: The expert testified that this [00:24:55] Speaker 04: ZMAX software he used, the same capabilities existed and were available to and commonly used by the skilled artisans at the time. [00:25:05] Speaker 04: And that's Appendix 700, where Mr. Akins explained that this is what the Bozzetta would have done. [00:25:14] Speaker 04: The board did not consider the ZMAX evidence at all. [00:25:18] Speaker 04: The board's decision did not consider the ZMAX evidence in determining motivation. [00:25:22] Speaker 04: They simply didn't. [00:25:23] Speaker 04: They gave a few reasons that we submit were error. [00:25:28] Speaker 04: And then Sakine paragraph 50 was the correct paragraph where it says that its teachings were a la carte, and that's appendix 927. [00:25:37] Speaker 04: And then finally, the last point, that there was no benefit [00:25:41] Speaker 04: There was a great benefit. [00:25:42] Speaker 04: The benefit of the combination was that you had a 115 degree field of view. [00:25:47] Speaker 04: Chung 11 and 12 did not have that. [00:25:50] Speaker 04: So there was a benefit. [00:25:51] Speaker 04: Sakine wasn't there to tell you how to increase the field of view. [00:25:55] Speaker 04: It was there to tell you what to take care of and look for and to adjust in order that that increased field of view doesn't mess up everything else. [00:26:06] Speaker 04: So we submit that the board erred [00:26:09] Speaker 04: as a matter of law by not considering this probative evidence and that tainted everything along with the other errors that we've noted. [00:26:17] Speaker 01: Okay. [00:26:17] Speaker 01: Thank you very much. [00:26:18] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:26:18] Speaker 01: Case is submitted.