UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`____________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`____________
`
`APPLE, INC.,
`Petitioners,
`
`v.
`
`IMMERSION CORPORATION,
`Patent Owner.
`_____________
`
`Case IPR2016-01907
`Patent 7,808,488 B2
`____________
`
`Record of Oral Hearing
`Held: January 10, 2018
`____________
`
`
`
`
`Before BRYAN F. MOORE, PATRICK R. SCANLON, and MINN
`CHUNG, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`
`
`
`____________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`____________
`
`APPLE, INC.,
`Petitioners,
`
`v.
`
`IMMERSION CORPORATION,
`Patent Owner.
`_____________
`
`Case IPR2016-01907
`Patent 7,808,488 B2
`____________
`
`Record of Oral Hearing
`Held: January 10, 2018
`____________
`
`
`
`
`Before BRYAN F. MOORE, PATRICK R. SCANLON, and MINN
`CHUNG, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`
`
`
`
`Case IPR2016-01907
`Patent 7,808,488 B2
`
`
`
`APPEARANCES:
`
`ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER:
`
`
`BRIAN K. ERICKSON, ESQUIRE
`JAMES M. HEINTZ, ESQUIRE
`DLA Piper, LLP
`401 Congress Avenue
`Suite 2500
`Austin, TX 78701
`
`
`
`ON BEHALF OF THE PATENT OWNER:
`
`
`RICHARD M. BIRNHOLZ, ESQUIRE
`BABAK REDJAIAN, ESQUIRE
`MICHAEL R. FLEMING, ESQUIRE
`Irell & Manella LLP
`1800 Avenue of the Stars
`Suite 900
`Los Angeles, CA 90067
`
`
`
`
`The above-entitled matter came on for hearing on Wednesday,
`
`January 10, 2018, at 2:02 p.m., at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,
`Madison Building East, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia, before
`Chris Hofer, Notary Public.
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`Case IPR2016-01907
`Patent 7,808,488 B2
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`P R O C E E D I N G S
`- - - - -
`JUDGE SCANLON: Thank you. Well, let’s get started. This is the
`hearing for IPR2016-01907. I’m Judge Scanlon and with me on the panel
`are Judge Moore and Judge Chung. For the record, let’s take the
`appearances. If you can introduce yourself, Petitioner.
`MR. ERICKSON: Thank you, Your Honor. Brian Erickson with
`DLA Piper representing Petitioner, Apple. With me is Jim Heintz also with
`DLA Piper, and in-house counsel at Apple, Kim Moore.
`MR. BIRNHOLZ: Good afternoon, Your Honors. Richard Birnholz
`of Irell & Manella for Patent Owner, Immersion, and with me is lead counsel
`Mike Fleming and also Babak Redjaian, also of Irell & Manella.
`JUDGE SCANLON: All right, great. Thank you. So in this case in
`the Trial Hearing Order we set each party 45 minutes to present the
`arguments. Again, Petitioner will present first and may reserve time for
`rebuttal and then Patent Owner will present its case. Regarding Patent
`Owner’s notice of objections to the demonstratives -- the notice that was
`filed a couple of days ago -- demonstratives are intended merely to assist the
`parties in presenting their oral arguments and they’re not meant to be
`evidence, so the parties may use their demonstratives during the
`presentation. The panel will take account of any objection previously raised
`as to any particular demonstrative and in that regard the panel is able to
`recognize new or unsupported argument in a slide and disregard any
`impermissible content. So we’ll proceed in that manner. So counsel for
`Petitioner when you’re ready, you may proceed.
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`Patent 7,808,488 B2
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`MR. BIRNHOLZ: Your Honor, may I ask one procedural point.
`Richard Birnholz for the Patent Owner. We also filed a Motion to Exclude
`which was briefed and I believe the Trial Order also referenced that we
`would have the opportunity to present arguments in connection with the
`Motion to Exclude, and we would ask for the opportunity to reserve five
`minutes or the balance of unused time in rebuttal with respect to the Motion
`to Exclude. So after --
`JUDGE SCANLON: Yes, granted. You can reserve the amount of
`time you would like to.
`MR. BIRNHOLZ: Okay. Thank you very much, Your Honor.
`JUDGE SCANLON: Thank you. Proceed when you’re ready.
`MR. ERICKSON: Thank you, Your Honor. May it please the Board.
`Moving to slide 2. The Board instituted IPR on two grounds. First ground,
`the first set of claims related to claim 1 are obvious, as unpatentable over
`JP725 also known as the Tsuji reference. The second ground that claim 29
`is obvious, as unpatentable over the combination of Komata and
`Niedzwiecki.
`In slide 3, there are several topics to cover in this IPR. There is a lot
`of overlap with the topics that were addressed in the preceding hearing
`related to the parent patent, or the ’488 patent. I will try to be as succinct as
`possible and only address issues that are unique to the ’488 trial patent
`where possible. There is the claim construction issue about a single
`interaction and then there’s the questions about whether the claims are
`obvious over Tsuji and the combination of Komata and Niedzwiecki.
`Starting with the single interaction claim construction issue on slide 5,
`the Board properly held in its preliminary construction that there’s no single
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`interaction or contact requirement in any of the challenged claims. Like the
`parent patent IPR, the Board ordered additional briefing prior to its
`Institution decision in order to fully address the claim construction issues
`and again, similar to the previous IPR there are no new issues raised that
`would justify the Board revisiting its preliminary claim construction issue
`position.
`Moving forward to slide 10. Slide 10 illustrates challenged claim 1.
`Taking a look at the claim language, the claim’s outputting a display signal,
`in other words one or more display signals, receiving a sensor signal that’s
`indicating a pressure contact determining an interaction based on the
`pressure -- so one pressure, one interaction -- generating an actuator signal,
`one actuator signal, outputting the actuator signal, again, one actuator signal.
`Moving to slide 11. The primary dispute relates to the “Wherein”
`clause about how that one actuator signal is configured. As claimed, there
`are clearly two “if” conditional clauses in this claim, specifically if the
`pressure is less than a first pressure threshold, the one actuator signal would
`be configured one way. If the pressure is between a first pressure threshold
`and a second pressure threshold the actuator signal will be configured a
`second way. This is a simple conditional “if” statement. There’s nothing
`that requires two pressures that can be inconsistent with the claim to have
`two different pressures applied to have two different actuator signals that’s
`certainly required to practice the claim.
`Now the Patent Owner relies heavily on the fact that these two
`conditional clauses are joined by the word “and” but they’re inconsistent
`because dependent claim 8 also has the word “and” joining conditional “if”
`clauses. Dependent claim 8 further specifies that the graphical object in
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`claim 1 actually comprises two graphical objects and if you contact the first
`object there could be a first or second haptic effect and if you contact the
`second object there could be a third or fourth haptic effect. No one in this
`IPR argues that to practice claim 8 all four haptic effects have to be output.
`Even Patent Owner concedes that you don’t have to output all four haptic
`effects. They argue you would have to do either the first two haptic effects
`or the second two haptic effects. So Patent Owner is inconsistent with its
`reliance on the word “and,” “and” doesn’t do the work in claim 1 that it says
`it does.
`JUDGE SCANLON: Excuse me. When you say Patent Owner
`concedes that, is that what you’re referencing on your slide 13?
`MR. ERICKSON: Yes. This is Patent Owner’s expert deposition that
`there would be two different contacts in claim 8 and I believe Patent Owner
`has slides to that effect. They will be confirming that today.
`JUDGE SCANLON: Thank you.
`MR. ERICKSON: Now one thing that’s different here from the
`parent patent is that there’s no dispute in this IPR that they’re accusing
`infringing claim 1 two different interactions. So this is pointed out in
`Petitioner’s reply to Patent Owner’s preliminary response -- this is the
`additional briefing -- Petitioner pointed out that in the ITC in the exhibits to
`their certified complaint where they’re asserting their infringement case and
`seeking to exclude all iPhones from the United States, what they point to for
`the first haptic effect is an interaction with the URL, so you have a text
`message with a URL address in it, and you press lightly in the URL and you
`get a peak, that’s one haptic effect, and what’s displayed is the preview
`platter in the middle of this photo, and you press harder and you get a pop.
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`So that is two different interactions, two different graphical objects. It’s
`inconsistent here in this IPR for the Patent Owner to now say there has to be
`for claim 1 a single interaction with a single graphical object. Patent Owner
`does not respond to this in their response waiving any argument, so it’s
`undisputed in this IPR that Patent Owner is taking different positions in this
`IPR versus the ITC.
`The Board correctly analyzed the claim language of the first set of
`claims and held in its Institution decision that the claim language does not
`require both events to occur during given interaction. There’s no reason to
`revisit that decision.
`Moving on to claim 29. Claim 29 claims an input device that’s
`movable to a first position upon application of a first pressure and to a
`second position upon application of a second pressure. This is on
`Petitioner’s slide 16. There’s no recitation in the words of claim 29 where
`you’re moving from. Are you moving from a rest position where there’s no
`pressure or no contact perhaps? Are you moving directly from the first to
`the second or second to the first? There’s nothing in the claim that narrows
`that down. There are descriptions of embodiments with joy sticks and other
`things that maybe you would go left for the first position and then apply
`more pressure to the right after passing through a rest position. There’s
`nothing in the claim that requires a single contact or a single interaction.
`Slide 17. Similar to the parent patent, there is a claimed mathematical
`relationship and that the second pressure is greater than the first pressure.
`This is the identical issue that we’ve addressed in the parent patent. We
`won’t be spending much time on it here, suffice to say the Board was correct
`that there are no other claimed relationships between the applications of
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`these pressures other than saying the second pressure is greater than the first
`pressure.
`Patent Owner responds arguing that again that the Board has
`somehow read out or made the claimed relationship superfluous. The Board
`did no such thing. It still distinguishes -- you recall we looked at the
`provisional application that talked about there needs to be more than an
`on/off switch. We might have zero pressure and a single pressure where you
`have an on situation. You have to have two positions, two pressures that
`result in two different positions so they definitely exclude devices that only
`applied one effect based on movement to one position. So this claim has
`meaning without and there’s no need to read in anything from the further
`embodiments, particularly a single interaction for contact requirement.
`The specification overlays substantially with what we just discussed
`in the parent IPR as does the file history. So unless there are any other
`questions on claim construction, I’ll move forward to the obviousness issues.
`JUDGE SCANLON: I have no questions.
`MR. ERICKSON: Thank you, Your Honor. Moving to slide 26.
`Tsuji, even if the Board were to narrow its construction to require some kind
`of single interaction that’s still disclosed in Tsuji, Tsuji discloses as shown
`in the table on figure 13 whenever you detect a contact with a region at a
`pressure you will provide that haptic effect. We’ve covered this already.
`There’s no basis for Patent Owner’s argument that there might be some
`other logic that would make an exception here and somehow figure it out
`whether something was part of one contact or not. In fact it’s contrary to the
`whole teaching of tracing and all the embodiments we previously discussed.
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`So unless there are any more questions there, I will move on to the
`second issue of Tsuji which is the determining an interaction with a
`graphical object limitation. Moving forward to slide 31. So really there are
`two subsidiary issues here. Does Tsuji actually display graphical objects
`and does Tsuji determine an interaction with those graphical objects as
`claimed? Unquestionably it does.
`Looking at Petitioner’s slide 31. These are buttons on an ATM.
`Figure 4 shows that they’re displayed. They’re buttons on a volume
`controller. Figure 20 shows that they’re displayed. The text of Tsuji says
`they’re displayed. If you look at paragraph 47 quoted on slide 31. “Regions
`R1 through R7 displayed by these menus.” Paragraph 153. “Volume
`control knobs are displayed.” There’s no question that they’re displayed.
`Moving to slide 32. You want to talk credibility. Patent Owners
`argue and in their expert’s testimony that the only things that’s displayed are
`the words is simply not credible. You see the deposition testimony here on
`slide 32.
`Question: “Tsuji discloses that the menu in figure 4 displays regions
`R1 through R7, correct?” There’s an objection, witness. What it does
`disclose is that in Region R1 within the region it’s displaying the word
`deposit. So we impeached him at that point with his trial testimony. You
`see the highlighted testimony there, was his trial testimony in front of the
`ALJ at the ITC.
`Question: “This particular LCD screen displays the menus of an
`ATM, correct?”
`Answer: “I believe that’s correct.”
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`Question: “And Tsuji discloses the menu displayed regions R1
`through R7, correct?”
`Answer: “That’s correct.”
`So for the Patent Owner and its expert here to take the position that
`only the words are displayed, that these are not graphical objects to go back
`on their testimony already to the ITC is simply not credible.
`Moving to slide 33. Tsuji clearly discloses determining interaction.
`They disclose that as you trace and as you trace over a button at less than
`that first threshold the region will change color and then when you press on
`that button greater than that first one you’ll actually have a successful
`operation and you’ll get a haptic effect.
`Moving to slide 34. There are numerous examples disclosed. In the
`ATM use case it will sense that a deposit has been selected, it’ll sense that
`withdrawal has been selected, it’ll sense that you’ve clicked a number when
`you’re entering a number on the numeric keypad.
`Moving to slide 35 and the volume controller embodiment. When you
`put your finger on the volume knob and you apply a pressing force
`thereupon, in other words you’re above that first threshold and the finger is
`then moved the display of the volume knob moves in conjunction with the
`movement of the finger to actually change the volume. So there’s no
`question that the operation of Tsuji is disclosing determining interaction
`with these graphical objects.
`The Board’s preliminary findings on this issue are correct. Jump
`forward to Petitioner’s slide 39. This simply evinces an apparent
`misunderstanding of the operating regions of Tsuji. That’s clearly correct
`and I think it’s charitable to call out the misunderstanding.
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`So unless there are any other questions on Tsuji I’ll move forward to
`Komata. Two issues with Komata. Again, we have the single interaction
`contact issue. I won’t repeat that because we’ve covered that in the
`preceding IPR so we’ll move to the second issue which is whether claim 29
`is obvious over Komata and Niedzwiecki.
`I’m on Petitioner’s slide 45 and this just shows a highlighted version
`of claim 29. You’ll notice the preamble is an apparatus comprising and then
`there’s all of these limitations about the input device and that it’s detecting
`pressure and providing a tactile sensation.
`And then there’s this last “Wherein” limitation and it’s really an
`orthogonal or stand alone limitation. You’ll notice it just says “Wherein the
`apparatus,” it goes all the way back up to the preamble. There’s no tie here
`to any of the other limitations in the claim. It says,
`“Wherein the apparatus comprises at least one of a mobile telephone,
`a personal computer or a hand held computing device.”
`So moving forward to slide 46. Niedzwiecki disclosed in 1995 a way
`to have a configurable, in the title, configurable keyboard to personal
`computer video game controller adaptor. The entire point of Niedzwiecki is
`that personal computers, at least computers again that are marketed as
`personal computers versus computers that are marketed as video game
`entertainment systems, people would like to use their video game
`controllers, their popular video game controllers, to play games on their
`PC’s. So the entire point was just provide an adaptor to do that.
`Moving to slide 47. Such it teaches that there’s a configurable
`keyboard to personal computer video game controller adaptor.
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`Slide 48. You see an example of an adaptor 20. This is figure 2 from
`Niedzwiecki, and here you have a Nintendo controller with a Nintendo
`controller hardware interface there shown as items 30 and 28 and you have a
`Sega controller with a Sega hardware interface 34 and 32. Other figures in
`Niedzwiecki show different hardware connectors. So 3B and 3C for
`example shows that you have different hardware interfaces.
`Moving to slide 49. Niedzwiecki expressly and repeatedly discloses
`you will configure your adaptor to support the target controller. That’s for
`both software and hardware. You see the first cite here, paragraph 49.
`“The microcontroller 66 can be easily programmed to emulate the
`multiplex serial communications protocol that a particular type of computer
`uses,” and then the second cite is talking about the hardware in the last
`sentence.
`“Such connectors 28, 30, 32 and 34 are unique to the type of
`controller the invention is designed to operate with.”
`Moving to slide 50. Niedzwiecki teaches that you want to be able to
`operate with all the popular controllers; a Nintendo, Sega, Hatari, and of
`course Sony PlayStation, perhaps the most popular of all, and it includes the
`forward looking statements.
`“Expressly teaching a person of ordinary skill that the invention can
`be easily customized to operate with any new multiplex communication
`based video game controller that becomes available.”
`So you have all those express teachings in Niedzwiecki filed in ’95
`but available at the relevant time in 2002, and you have Komata come along
`in 2001, again still 16 months before the relevant date. Again, describing
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`the PlayStation 2 that the Patent Owner in his provisional described as an
`example of its invention, and Komata describes --
`JUDGE SCANLON: Excuse me.
`MR. ERICKSON: Yes, Your Honor.
`JUDGE SCANLON: Quick question. Speaking on your slide
`discussing the different types of controllers Niedzwiecki would work with, if
`you can go back to slide 48 and figure 2 of the reference has two different
`types of controllers. Is that just for illustration purposes? I mean could this
`device work with two players using the same type of controller?
`MR. ERICKSON: The figures 3B and 3C show the same type of
`hardware interface. So there’s an example here in figure 2 where there’s
`different hardware interfaces and example in figure 3 where 3B and 3C,
`there’s a matching pair if you will. 3B has a matching pair of hardware
`interfaces and 3C has a different but also matching pair of hardware
`interfaces. So I don’t recall --
`JUDGE SCANLON: So you could use two controllers of the same
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`type?
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`MR. ERICKSON: Oh, yes, Your Honor. Absolutely. Yes, Your
`Honor, that’s expressly disclosed in the text as well as in figures 3B and 3C.
`JUDGE SCANLON: Thank you.
`MR. ERICKSON: Moving to slide 52. What was the obvious
`challenge made in the petition? The challenge is made that it would have
`been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to configure an adaptor,
`as taught by Niedzwiecki, to connect to an interface with the controllers, as
`taught by Komata, in a manner that supports the functionality of the
`controllers described in Komata. So we rely on Niedzwiecki to get to the
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`adaptor and then Komata describes the interface between the controller
`that’s in the adaptor and the Komata game controllers, and every teaching in
`Niedzwiecki is that you will configure the hardware and the software to
`support whatever is needed by the new controller.
`Continuing with slide 53. The petition discusses the possibility of
`using multibyte digital words if necessary to communicate between the
`adaptor and the controllers. Notes that Niedzwiecki itself is a simple matter
`for a person of ordinary skill in the art to support any type of protocol used
`to communicate with the video game controllers.
`Moving on to slide 52. It’s expressly stated that you would configure
`the adaptor 20 in Niedzwiecki to pass the drive signals from the computer to
`Komata’s controller. Now we note that to get from the computer to the
`adaptor uses the bidirectional keyboard port and then once you’re at the
`adaptor you program that microcontroller to communicate bidirectionally
`with the controller as taught by Komata.
`Moving forward to slide 56. Patent Owner responded making several
`meritless arguments. First, and I won’t go through them on slide 56. We’ll
`step through each of these individually. Slide 57. The first argument, this is
`attack the references individually. They attack Niedzwiecki’s adaptor
`saying it only allows one way communication from the control pads to the
`adaptor. We don’t rely on Niedzwiecki for two way communication, we
`rely on Komata for that. There’s no dispute that Komata teaches that.
`Usually when you see these arguments you’ll see the Patent Owner say it’s
`not disclosed in the first reference and that deficiency is not shared in the
`second reference, so the combination doesn’t disclose it.
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`They don’t do the second part of that argument. You’ll notice in their
`briefing they say the first reference doesn’t disclose bidirectional
`communication and then they’re silent on Komata. There’s no question that
`Komata gives a fully enabled disclosure of bidirectional communication
`between a video game controller and a microcontroller. This is really just to
`set up their strawman bodily incorporation argument. We’ve never argued
`that you could put a 2002 PlayStation dual shot controller keyboard into a
`1995 Nintendo port. You’re going to have different hardware, you’re going
`to have different software. That’s what the petition says. You’re going to
`configure, as taught by Niedzwiecki, both software and hardware to support
`whatever is next. Bodily incorporation argument they’re setting up is simply
`the wrong legal standard as the Federal Circuit affirmed in In re Keller.
`Moving to slide 58. Another argument they make is that at the time of
`Niedzwiecki’s priority date 1995 that bidirectional controllers had not yet
`been released for the PlayStation. Well, that’s an interesting trivial note but
`the correct time for evaluating obvious is the time of the alleged invention
`which is 2002, and in his deposition when we asked him about this, he
`confirmed the second bullet point on slide 58, he confirmed that he had not
`considered the start of the art and specifically the controllers that were
`available in 2002 to determine whether or not this is within the scope of one
`of ordinary skill in the art.
`Third bullet point on slide 58. Komata fully discloses the
`bidirectional communication with the controllers and in fact when Patent
`Owner submitted their response, they submitted publications related to these
`controllers, the PlayStation controllers, calling them iconic. So they’re right
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`in the bulls eye, the heart of what Niedzwiecki is all about. You want to
`support the popular controllers on a PC.
`Moving to slide 59. Patent Owners argued that modifying
`Niedzwiecki’s system to allow the adaptor to send haptic commands from
`the computer to Komata’s controllers would be far from trivial. There’s a
`lot packed into this statement and I want to unpack it here for the Board.
`First of all, note that there can be no objective confusion that the
`petition set out that we would configuring the adaptor in Niedzwiecki to
`support the communication protocols disclosed in Komata. Objectively
`that’s what we’ve established here. That’s what’s in the petition. But it’s
`interesting to note that subjectively that Patent Owner understood exactly
`what we were saying. All right. Now the Patent Owner instead of using the
`word configuring, they used the word modifying. Okay, fine. But they had
`no -- subjectively Patent Owner interpreted the petition correctly and
`understood that we were arguing that Niedzwiecki would be changed
`whether you call it adapt, configure, modify, to support what’s disclosed in
`Komata.
`Now the second thing about this statement to note is that far from
`trivial is not the test. What we’re here to discuss today is obviousness, not
`whether something’s trivial or not and the fact that the best their expert
`could come up with is that it’s far from trivial is quite telling. So the
`evidence in response, we pointed out that Komata fully discloses this, that
`by 2002 the state of the art was such that many game controllers were
`bidirectional and we cited to patents from Nintendo and Sega, and Namco,
`so the first two Nintendo and Sega, those are exactly what Niedzwiecki is
`expressly telling you you’re going to want to support in the future. So by
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`2002 the state of the art, and exactly what Niedzwiecki is telling expressly
`someone of ordinary skill to support are all bidirectional. And finally, we
`show that even Niedzwiecki itself contemplates multiplex bidirectional
`communication and it says it’s not new, so certainly within the knowledge
`and skill of one of ordinary skill in the art to support bidirectional
`communications.
`The next argument Patent Owner makes is that multiple bytes are
`somehow beyond the skill of a person of ordinary skill in the art. So first of
`all just on its face, this lacks credibility that an engineer, a person of
`ordinary skill in the art would not know how to handle multiple bytes of
`data. Would not know of any communication protocols that would allow
`communication of multiple bytes of data. Again, Patent Owner doesn’t
`dispute that Komata discloses it, but here not only is it not credible on its
`face, Niedzwiecki actually discloses that you can use multiple scan codes for
`this very purpose and they actually have a term for it you can see in the
`citation is that Niedzwiecki calls it a macro effect where you have multiple
`bytes representing a button press. Simply not credible.
`The Patent Owner then makes the argument that there’s no motivation
`to support Komata and their expert testifies that a person of ordinary skill
`would not be motivated to support Komata’s controller. Really? The iconic
`PlayStation controller, there’s no motivation? Not credible. Again, as
`shown in 2002, the state of the art at that time is all of these things that
`Niedzwiecki is telling you to support are all bidirectional. To say there was
`no motivation? Not credible.
`Again, slide 62 shows the citation as to where the dual shot controller
`is, the iconic controller at the time of 2002. Then, slide 63. They next argue
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`there is no reasonable expectation of success. The objective evidence is
`obviously all to the contrary. Niedzwiecki says you can easily program
`something to have multiplex communications and more to the point, this
`conclusory statement here is completely unsupported. They couldn’t even
`come up with a hypothetical way that you would fail. This is not an
`unpredictable art like we’re searching for a new chemical or drug. They
`couldn’t show any actual failure and they couldn’t even come up with a
`hypothetical way that a person of ordinary skill would fail at this. It’s
`simply not credible to say that there’s no reasonable expectation of success.
`Dr. Sarrafzedah’s testimony, the last bullet on slide 64 is that it is
`trivial and that’s consistent with all of the evidence. Komata discloses it and
`Niedzwiecki acknowledges it’s not new. Patent Owner’s argument finally is
`belied by the fact of the disclosure in the patent itself, and this is the last
`slide, slide 65.
`You recall this is also in the petition in this case. We discussed it in
`the parent case, but I’m going to flip very briefly to show the panel here the
`petition in the ’488 case at page 57. This is the same excerpt from the
`provisional where it says the present invention includes, for example, I’m
`paraphrasing here and you jump down to the second sentence and it uses the
`example the Sony PlayStation 2 game pads. In this record that’s at Exhibit
`1014 at 7. So you have the same example of this type of input device is the
`PlayStation 2 game pad.
`Now what do they do in the patent in addition to that, and this is the
`citation to the ’488 patent at column 3, lines 1 to 17, and we see what their
`contribution to the art is. “The present invention includes methods and
`system for providing tactile sensations. One embodiment includes methods
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`and system for providing tactile sensations to input devices, both mechanical
`and non-mechanical.” I’ll skip the parenthetical. And then they say,
`“Embodiments of the present invention can be utilized in a wide
`variety of electronic devices including” and it starts with telephones and then
`you see mobile telephones, remote controls, game pads. I’ll skip down to
`five lines from the bottom wrapping it says personal computers. That’s in
`the list. There’s no hand held computers listed here, that’s also in the claims
`but the claims are mobile telephones, personal computers and then hand held
`computers. But also listed, calculators, home appliances, so I guess there’s
`washing machines and blenders, and light goods. This is the entirety of the
`disclosure in the patent about how you would incorporate these input devices
`like, for example, the Sony PlayStation into a personal computer. No
`discussion of what communication protocol you’d use, no discussion of
`multiplexing, no discussion of how you would handle multiple bytes of
`information. No discussion of what voltages or sampling rates or what
`protocols you’d use, nothing.
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