`
`
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`
`__________________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`
`___________________
`
`ACTIVISION BLIZZARD, INC.,
`ELECTRONIC ARTS INC.,
`TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE, INC.,
`2K SPORTS, INC.,
`ROCKSTAR GAMES, INC., and
`BUNGIE, INC.,
`Petitioner,
`v.
`
`ACCELERATION BAY, LLC,
`Patent Owner.
`____________________
`
`Case IPR2015-019511
`Patent 6,714,966
`
`__________________________________________________________
`
`DECLARATION OF ROBERT ABARBANEL IN SUPPORT OF PATENT
`OWNER’S RESPONSE
`
`
`
`1 Bungie, Inc., who filed a Petition in IPR2016-00935, has been joined as a
`petitioner in this proceeding.
`
`
`
`
`
`Declaration of Robert Abarbanel
`I, Robert Abarbanel, declare as follows:
`
`1.
`
`I am over the age of majority and make this declaration of my own
`
`personal knowledge.
`
`2.
`
`I am currently retired, and doing parttime consulting work as a
`
`programmer for Jonova, Inc., in Seattle.
`
`3.
`
`From 1990 to 2001, I was employed at Boeing, Inc. (“Boeing”) as
`
`member of the Computer Science group, in the Mathematics and Computer
`
`organization.
`
`4.
`
`From 1993 to 2000, I was the manager of a section of the Computer
`
`Science group in the
`
`
`
` at Boeing. During that time frame, I
`
`had direct supervision over Virgil Bourassa. As his manager, I oversaw the
`
`creation and development of “SWAN: SmallWorld Wide Area Networking”
`
`(“SWAN”). Specifically, I would receive regular progress updates, attend
`
`meetings, review reports, and observe the progression of the development of
`
`SWAN. The SWAN project began in November 1996 and was satisfactorily tested
`
`on or before September 16, 1999 in an internal program at Boeing known as
`
`
`
` I observed SWAN being implemented in
`
` on or before
`
`
`
`
`
`September 16, 1999 with a demonstration of the project that was given to the
`
`
`
`
`
`5.
`
`Based on my observations of SWAN in
`
` and my discussions
`
`with Virgil Bourassa and Fred Holt, on or before September 16, 1999, SWAN was
`
`a peertopeer communication platform. It achieved high reliability and low
`
`latency which allowed for significant scalability. The system was completely
`
`distributed and allowed participants to join, depart and fail at any time.
`
`6.
`
`Based on my observations of SWAN in
`
`
`
` and my discussions
`
`with Virgil Bourassa and Fred Holt, on or before September 16, 1999, the SWAN
`
`technology was an application level communication system that allowed for the
`
`simultaneous sharing of information. It was a communications library that allowed
`
`computer processes to share information across a widearea network using
`
`underlying pointtopoint network communication protocols. In one example, the
`
`SWAN communication library overlaid on an underlying TCP/IP pointtopoint
`
`network.
`
`7.
`
`Based on my observations of SWAN in
`
`
`
` and my discussions
`
`with Virgil Bourassa and Fred Holt, on or before September 16, 1999, the SWAN
`
`technology was implemented as a 4regular graph that was incomplete.
`
`Specifically, each participant had a connection to at least three neighbor
`
`
`
` 2
`
`
`
`participants. The SWAN technology would send data from an originating
`
`participant to the other participants by sending data through each of its connections
`
`to its neighbor participants. In order to continue the transfer of data, each
`
`participant would send data that it receives from a neighbor participant to its other
`
`neighbor participants. A screenshot of the SWAN system as it existed on or before
`
`September 16, 1999 is shown below which demonstrates 100 participants each
`
`having 4 connections to its neighboring participants:
`
`
`
` 3
`
`
`
`
`
`8.
`
`Virgil Bourassa and Fred Holt first showed me the graph in Figure 2
`
`on or before September 16, 1999, and described to me the optimized
`
`communications among nodes in this graph and the resistance to damage of the
`
`group’s functions due to failed edges.
`
`
`
` 4
`
`
`
`9.
`
`On or before September 16, 1999, the SWAN technology had many
`
`contemplated functions. This included providing a gaming environment,
`
`information delivery services and collaborative airplane design. In a gaming
`
`environment, each of the participants would be gaming participants using a gaming
`
`application and the data that was transferred from participant to participant would
`
`be gaming data. In an information delivery service, each of the participants would
`
`be interested in particular information that is being distributed using applications
`
`and the data that was transferred from participate to participant would be
`
`information delivery service data. In a collaborative airplane design system such
`
`as
`
`
`
` each of the participants would be airplane engineers and the data that
`
`was transferred from participant to participant would be CAD data.
`
`10.
`
`
`
` Based on my observations of SWAN in
`
` and my discussions
`
`with Virgil Bourassa and Fred Holt, on or before September 16, 1999, SWAN was
`
`a dynamic network that used a nonrouting table based broadcast channel. SWAN
`
`used an underlying communication network that provides peertopeer
`
`communications between the participants connected to the broadcast channel. In
`
`one example, each participant to the broadcast channel could receive an indication
`
`of the four neighbor participants. The broadcast component could receive data
`
`from a neighbor participant using the communication network and send the data to
`
`
`
` 5
`
`
`
`the neighbor participants to effect the broadcasting of the data to each participate of
`
`the broadcast channel. As shown above, the SWAN technology was implemented
`
`using a 4regular network with 100 participants which results in a noncomplete
`
`graph.
`
`11. Attached as Appendix A is a true and correct copy of the Invention
`
`Disclosure form that Virgil Bourassa and Fred Holt submitted and presented to me.
`
`As demonstrated on the first page, I was the manager of Virgil Bourassa. Each
`
`page of this document following the first contains my signature demonstrating that
`
`the invention was described to me and that I understood it. Although the date on
`
`each page that shows my signature contains the date of December 23, 1999,
`
`Appendix A contains a description of the SWAN system as it worked when it was
`
`satisfactorily tested on or before September 16, 1999 as indicated on the first page
`
`of the document based on my observations.
`
`12.
`
`I was aware that there was significant interest in the SWAN system
`
`because of its ability to provide an applicationlevel environment in which a large
`
`number of participants could collaborate. This interest was generated because of
`
`the unique design of the system which allowed participates to send data to other
`
`participants using an mregular, noncomplete graph. As demonstrated in
`
`Appendix A, this interest came from IBM, Data Connections, Ltd., Dassault
`
`
`
` 6
`
`
`
`Systems. In addition, potential licensing opportunities existed with software game
`
`vendors.
`
`13.
`
`I declare under penalty and perjury under the laws of the United States
`
`of America that this declaration is true, complete, and accurate to the best of my
`
`knowledge. I further acknowledge that willful false statements and the like are
`
`punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001.
`
`
`
`Executed at Seattle, WA on July 11, 2016.
`
`
`
`_________________________
`Robert Abarbanel
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
` 7
`
`