`
`Case: Certain Robotic Vacuum Cleaning Devices and Components
`Thereof Such as Spare Parts
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`Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
`Phone: 202-347-3700
`Fax: 202-737-3638
`Email: info@acefederal.com
`Internet: www.acefederal.com
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`1
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`IROBOT 2015
`Shenzhen Silver Star v. iRobot
`IPR2018-00897
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`2
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` UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
` BEFORE THE
` INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION
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`Page 1
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`- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
`IN THE MATTER OF: : Investigation No.
`CERTAIN ROBOTIC VACUUM CLEANING : 337-TA-1057
`DEVICES AND COMPONENTS THEREOF :
`SUCH AS SPARE PARTS :
`- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
`
` HEARING
`
` Friday, March 9, 2018
` Courtroom B
` U.S. International Trade
` Commission
` 500 E Street SW
` Washington, DC
`
`The Hearing commenced, pursuant to notice of the Judge, at
`9:48 a.m., before the Honorable Thomas B. Pender,
`Administrative Law Judge for the United States
`International Trade Commission.
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`APPEARANCES
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` RUFFIN CORDELL, ESQ.
` RALPH A. PHILLIPS, ESQ.
` STEPHEN A. MARSHALL, ESQ.
` LINHONG ZHANG, ESQ.
` JACK R. WILSON, ESQ.
` Fish & Richardson P.C.
` 901 15th Street, NW, Suite 700
` Washington, DC 20005
` 202.783.5070
` Counsel for Complainant iRobot Corporation
`
` JOSEPH B. WARDEN, ESQ.
` Fish & Richardson P.C.
` 222 Delaware Avenue, 17th Floor
` Wilmington, Delaware 19801
` 302.652.5070
` Counsel for Complainant iRobot Corporation
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`APPEARANCES (CONTINUED):
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` ANDREW G. PEARSON, ESQ.
` Fish & Richardson P.C.
` One Marina Park Drive
` Boston, Massachusetts 02210
` 617.542.5070
` Counsel for Complainant iRobot Corporation
`
` KECIA J. REYNOLDS, ESQ.
` SEAN M. WEINMAN, ESQ.
` Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman LLP
` 1200 Seventeenth Street, NW
` Washington, DC 20036
` 202.663.8025
` Counsel for Respondents The Black & Decker Corporation
` and Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Shenzhen Silver Star
` Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Hoover Inc., and
` Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co. d/b/a TTI Floor Care
` North America, Inc., and bObsweep USA and
` bObsweep Inc.
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`APPEARANCES (CONTINUED):
` BRYAN P. COLLINS, ESQ.
` Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman LLP
` 1650 Tysons Boulevard, 14th Floor
` McLean, Virginia 22102
` 703.770.7900
` Counsel for Respondents The Black & Decker Corporation
` and Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Shenzhen Silver Star
` Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Hoover Inc., and
` Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co. d/b/a TTI Floor Care
` North America, Inc., and bObsweep USA and
` bObsweep Inc.
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` JACK KO, PhD, ESQ.
` Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman LLP
` Suite 4201, Bund Center
` 222 Yan An Road East
` Shanghai 200002 China
` 86.21.6137.7999
` Counsel for Respondents The Black & Decker Corporation
` and Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Shenzhen Silver Star
` Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Hoover Inc., and
` Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co. d/b/a TTI Floor
` Care North America, Inc., and bObsweep USA and
` bObsweep Inc. - continued -
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`APPEARANCES (CONTINUED):
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` NICHOLAS A. BROWN, ESQ.
` Greenberg Traurig, LLP
` Four Embarcadero Center, Suite 3000
` San Francisco, California 94111
` 415.655.1300
` Counsel for Respondent Shenzhen ZhiYi Technology
` Co., Ltd.
`
` P.J. MC CARTHY, ESQ.
` MARK G. DAVIS, ESQ.
` Greenberg Traurig, LLP
` 2101 L Street, NW, Suite 1000
` Washington, DC 20037
` 202.331.3100
` Counsel for Respondent Shenzhen ZhiYi Technology
` Co., Ltd.
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` P R O C E E D I N G S
` JUDGE PENDER: We are now on the record.
` I was thinking to myself that when I get a brief
`like yours, I would have been happier with an executive
`summary, you know what I mean? And so this is -- this
`opening statement to you is probably important.
` MR. CORDELL: Well, thank you, your Honor. The
`reality is we struggle in cases like this with the number
`of products and the matrix that we have to put forward and
`the amount of proof we have to preserve, and at the same
`time, I readily acknowledge that the readability of the
`brief suffers greatly and we need to work on that, and we
`will. We will take your Honor's comments to heart and make
`sure that it counts.
` But having said that, I do appreciate the
`opportunity to make an opening statement. I will try to
`address it in chunks, and hopefully with a little more of
`an organization and executive summary.
` But I'd like to talk a little bit about our
`client and kind of the development that your Honor
`mentioned earlier today and how wonderful that's been, do a
`little bit on the Respondents to just sort of peel the veil
`back on who they are, and then address each of the patents
`and at least hit the significant infringement and
`invalidity issues that are likely to come up.
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` So with that, let me begin. IRobot, our client.
`Our client was founded by the three folks you see in the
`center, Helen Greiner, Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle. They
`were young MIT students and had been very interested in
`robots all the way through their academic career.
` They predated the battle bots that your Honor
`mentioned this morning, so I guess they were into robots
`before robots were fighting.
` On the left we show one of the prototypes that
`they worked on, which is called Ghengis, that was being
`developed for NASA. They were very big into the space
`program and were instrumental in bringing robotics to the
`broader community.
` They were established in 1990 in a little strip
`mall, the picture is not very good. But really from modest
`beginnings, iRobot has sprung forth.
` This is, in slide 4, Ghengis, which was that
`early robot they did in conjunction with NASA. Spent a
`fair amount of time in Smithsonian, on loan, I think it's
`on to another exhibit, but obviously a very, very important
`development.
` But this isn't just an experiment, it's not just
`theoretical. IRobot makes products that do real work.
` So in slide 5 we show the Pyramid of Giza
`because they made a robot that explored the intricacies of
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`the Pyramid of Giza without damaging the historical
`artifact that the structure is.
` In the center we show an oil well that's leaking
`oil because iRobot sends rovers down subsea to identify and
`ameliorate these kinds of spills.
` We've got a NASA rover and it contains a lot of
`iRobot technology as they send probes out to other planets.
`In the lower right hand we have a variant of the robot
`that's used to diffuse mines, and that's a theme that I
`will touch on over and over again.
` IRobot also makes devices for oil wells. We
`have the microrig.
` JUDGE PENDER: Diffuse mines, huh? Are they
`one-offs?
` MR. CORDELL: That could be. That could be. It
`depends on how it's diffused, I suppose.
` JUDGE PENDER: When I was at the Z in the early
`1980s, we would have to send mine sweepers down the road
`every night because they would sneak across the parallel
`there and put mines in the roads. It would have been
`nice -- I never had any confidence in those mine-sweeping
`devices, you know.
` MR. CORDELL: I had to pick among the various
`things that iRobot makes, but they actually make modern
`mine-sweeping devices that have weights on them. And you
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`are right, I think they are single use devices, but again,
`better for that purpose.
` The microrig is something that goes down hole in
`oil wells and does all kinds of work, you know, 10,000 feet
`below the surface. But iRobot also makes units that go
`into any hostile environment, nuke plants, places where the
`environment is too toxic for humans, so iRobot fills that
`gap, keeping humans safe.
` JUDGE PENDER: Do they make stuff that goes into
`wells too, like water wells?
` MR. CORDELL: Well, the microrig is exactly for
`that purpose. This one is shown in an oil capacity, but it
`can do all kinds of things down hole. You're right, I
`should have thought of this. They could fix some of the
`problems your Honor had with the DEQ.
` JUDGE PENDER: Well, it's not a problem anymore.
`Now I have all the extension agents want to come out and no
`one has ever seen a 70-gallon well before.
` MR. CORDELL: Wow. So everything got cleared?
` JUDGE PENDER: Yeah. It's lovely. Head
`pressure is now up to 15 feet below surface from --
` MR. CORDELL: Wow.
` JUDGE PENDER: Yeah, I know.
` MR. CORDELL: Wow. What's your elevation there?
` JUDGE PENDER: Well, I'm about 1100 right there.
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` MR. CORDELL: Wow. And you get to 15 feet,
`1
`that's remarkable. Yeah, I bet they're lining up.
` Robot ranger is a neat unit, it's a sea-borne
`robot that is sort of a drone for the Navy and Coast Guard,
`if you want to call it that. It carries out all kinds of
`missions. It clears mines. It does -- it does active
`warfare. It can carry munitions, it does surveillance,
`lots of different functions.
` One of the things that iRobot is most proud of
`is -- are the products that it's made for the military.
`Slide 7, we show a couple of examples. On the left we
`have -- upper left we have a PackBot. And the idea of a
`PackBot was a robot that could be man-portable. You could
`put it on a soldier's back, they could walk it into combat
`and then deploy it where it was used -- where it was
`needed.
` Sort of the next picture in is a picture of a
`PackBot exploring caves in Afghanistan, obviously a place
`you don't want to send people in if you don't have to and
`encounter whatever happens to be down there.
` And then we had a large version of the PackBot
`called the Warrior, on the right side, that's diffusing an
`IED. And as your Honor pointed out, sometimes those are
`single-use used devices. On the other hand, while it's a
`lot less exciting than the Hurt Locker movie, it's safer
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`for the people. That's the fundamental idea. And
`literally these devices saved thousands of lives in the
`last Gulf War.
` There are also smaller versions, at slide 8 on
`the left, we've got a SUGV, a lighter version of the
`PackBot. It's designed to be taken out with the squad and
`the squad deploys it where they encountered enemy to do the
`surveillance. It's got video capability.
` JUDGE PENDER: The arms on the front, if they
`hit an obstacle, they can climb over it?
` MR. CORDELL: Correct. It's a stair-climbing
`mechanism. By deploying it, it lifts the tracks that you
`see underneath to a level that can get on top of the
`obstacle, whatever that might be.
` It also has this video capability that you see
`high up so that it can be deployed and the squad remains
`safely under cover, and they can do surveillance and figure
`out where the enemy is before they expose themselves.
` JUDGE PENDER: I bet you the soldiers appreciate
`that.
` MR. CORDELL: Absolutely. Absolutely. Very,
`very popular. Too bad we can't put one out there with
`every single one of them in harm's way.
` But it's not just the military. On the right of
`slide 8, we have a photo of the PackBot at the World Trade
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`Center. So after the World Trade Center disaster, it was
`1
`sent in to identify victims that might be buried in rubble.
`And, you know, first responders were swarming all over it,
`but much of it was too unstable for people to go into
`safely.
` So we sent in the PackBot, and the PackBot goes,
`identifies signs of life, has sophisticated listening
`devices and is able to then have the human responders only
`take risks where they could actually save a victim. So
`very, very important work, something we're very proud of.
` The headquarters is in Bedford, Mass. And your
`Honor saw some of this in the DI motion. And there's
`another facility over in Pasadena.
` But really, the takeaway here is that iRobot is
`really a true American success story. You know, our MIT
`founders started out with nothing and yet had built this
`company, and really created an entire product segment that
`didn't exist before. And it was through creativity and
`vision and all of the R&D that it took to do this, as your
`Honor knows, was done here in the States.
` IRobot does do some manufacturing overseas, so I
`don't want to make you think that it's all American, all
`the time. The manufacturing of the current units is
`done -- is done overseas in China.
` But all the R&D and, as your Honor knows,
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`hundreds of engineers are employed here to carry out the
`iRobot vision.
` So let's talk about the technology and the
`products that are actually at issue. We have the Roomba,
`which was released in 2002 after about three years of
`intensive work, and again launched a whole new product
`category.
` Your Honor noted that there's some prior art out
`there, the Suckmaster, which was kind of a gangly, ugly
`thing and I'll talk about that a little more later. But
`the reality is that was a hobby project, something done to
`pick up rice at a competition.
` JUDGE PENDER: Oh, I understand that. But the
`point, though, is you know, the prior art is the prior art,
`you know what I mean? You have said that to me.
` MR. CORDELL: I have, I have. I probably will
`say it again. But I will address the Suckmaster
`individually, because -- because it was a hobby project, it
`suffered from deficiencies that keep it from invalidating
`these claims.
` But the reality is that iRobot was the one that
`came along with this notion of consumer version of a
`cleaning robot and created the whole product category,
`simply didn't exist before iRobot.
` There are a whole line of Roombas, not all of
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`which, of course, are at issue here. And then they also
`1
`make robotic cleaners for other applications, things like
`the Scuba, which is a mopping robot, it can actually mop
`your floor. The Looj, which is a gutter cleaner, you put
`it up in your gutter, so again humans don't have to take
`risk. It runs down the gutter, throwing out all of the
`debris that might otherwise be there.
` JUDGE PENDER: What's that called?
` MR. CORDELL: The Looj, L-o-o-j. I don't have
`one of those. I have these, but I'm getting one, because I
`have -- that gutter cleaning thing is -- it's too risky
`now. I've gotten old enough to understand that that ladder
`is a bad thing.
` JUDGE PENDER: When I go swimming, there's a
`former Olympic swimmer there that I swim with sometimes.
`He gives me three things. No ladders, no this, no that.
`But the no ladders is the important one.
` MR. CORDELL: I think that's right. And I have
`40-foot gutters, so it's a bad place to be.
` They also make a Verro, which is a pool-cleaning
`robot. I don't know if you've seen that in the pools, but
`it's out there.
` So let's talk about the DI products. It's
`Roomba 650, 860 and the 980. The good news is for two of
`the patents, there's no technical DI dispute. So that
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`certainly advances the cause of getting this all resolved.
` We also have the happy fact that your Honor has
`already ruled on the economic prong of domestic industry.
`Respondents did not petition on that, and while I suppose
`the Commission could still do something with it, at this
`point, I think it's remote.
` JUDGE PENDER: I think the domestic industry for
`you all was a sweet spot. You hit into the sweet spot.
`You know, almost any time you're going to have more than
`$10 million worth of domestic industry, how can you not say
`that's substantial, you know? So --
` MR. CORDELL: And 400 R&D engineers, that's a --
` JUDGE PENDER: One of the things we do is we
`make a mistake, we think because, say, for instance, I'll
`give you an example, and I don't mean it to be a real-world
`example. BASF, somebody might say $20 million isn't
`substantial to BSAF. But yes, it is, it's substantial to
`the economy of the United States. It's not whether it's
`substantial to BSAF so much as is it substantial in the
`United States. And that's why I ruled the way that I rule.
` MR. CORDELL: And I am sure that to the business
`unit that's responsible for it, even at a big company like
`BASF, that's a significant amount of money.
` Now we have the Respondents. We started out
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`because some of them are sort of affiliated.
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` But as your Honor pointed out, our goal here is
`to either license or get them out of the market. And we've
`done a fair amount of work in this case to make that
`happen.
` So Bissell Homecare was licensed. Suzhou
`Realpower agreed to get out of the market. Black & Decker
`agreed to get out of the market. Matsutek was licensed.
` We're down to really 3-1/2 Respondents, and the
`reason why I say a half is that Hoover, as your Honor
`pointed out earlier, is half out of the market. So what
`happened to Hoover is that one of their suppliers agreed to
`get out of the market, but they still have TTI as the
`supplier, and Silver Star. So they are half out of the
`market.
` So we are down to really 3-1/2 Respondents at
`this point, so we have made great progress.
` So let me just talk a little bit about each of
`the Respondents, if I can. Let's start with Shenzhen
`ZhiYi, and I am practicing saying that name. I'm told that
`it rhymes with GE, but it's ZhiYi. So I'll let the
`Respondents correct my pronunciation.
` They do business under the iLife mark and we've
`had some debate back and forth about whether or not --
`that's a proper association. But I think it's pretty
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`settled now that it's ZhiYi iLife, almost said as one
`phrase.
` They're pretty new, you know, established in
`2010. They are an electronics OEM. They have gotten into
`some dust-ups over some of their advertising claims, and
`that's what I've got in the middle of the slide there.
` But you can see that even the advertising
`agencies associate ZhiYi with the iLife name. So iLife
`ZhiYi, we're going to see that over and over again.
` Silver Star is the next Respondent, that's a big
`part of the manufacturing end of some of the other
`Respondents' products. It's a big Chinese conglomerate,
`the Silver Star group. The Silver Star group has been
`around --
` JUDGE PENDER: Have you guys given any thought
`to trade dress?
` MR. CORDELL: We have, we have. We've looked at
`some of that.
` JUDGE PENDER: I'd be 50 percent there right at
`the moment.
` MR. CORDELL: Maybe we should pursue that a
`little more vigorously. In the Commission, trade dress
`carries with it a whole bunch of additional burdens, so
`we --
` JUDGE PENDER: Usually what you have, problem in
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`trade dress, is the issue of survey, you know? Was it done
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`properly, whatever, you know?
` MR. CORDELL: We've had a few of those cases,
`and it's enormous contention over the way the questions are
`phrased and how --
` JUDGE PENDER: Exactly.
` MR. CORDELL: -- the sample was chosen and who
`was interviewed. It gets expensive fast. But you're
`right, that may well be the way to go.
` Established 2005 here refers to the fact that
`that's when Silver Star started to look at robots. And
`they claim to manufacture a bunch of them, but we'll see in
`a moment that, you know, where they get their designs is
`what's important.
` Hoover, your Honor is right, we've had Hoover
`forever. It's an iconic American brand. But it was sold
`to a Chinese conglomerate, TTI, in 2007. Your Honor may
`remember them from the 1016 investigation. Same outfit.
` Designs are pretty much done by overseas
`companies, and as I mentioned before, Hoover had a
`different supplier that agreed to exit the market for the
`Quest 700 and the Quest 800. So those robots have been
`taken out of the case.
` But the Quest 100 and Rogue 950, those are
`representative at least for our purposes, are being made by
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`Silver Star.
` And then finally we have bObsweep, which is a
`Canadian-based reseller. It's kind of a -- kind of, I
`guess, for lack of a better term, they are kind of just a
`retail outfit. They get products designed and manufactured
`by Silver Star, one of the other Respondents. They have no
`R&D or development staff. They are a marketing and sales
`organization. It's a couple of brothers, and I believe
`Respondents said one of them might be here for the trial,
`Ali Ebrahimi Afrouzi and Masih Ebrahimi Afrouzi, and they
`are really bObsweep. It's those guys that seem to do it.
` It turns out, your Honor, as we have seen in
`other cases, we've got some evidence here that the
`Respondents here didn't do all their own homework, and
`maybe were relying very heavily on iRobot and its designs
`as they made an effort to enter this market.
` So I have a series of slides now that are CBI,
`so I won't put them up on the screen, but your Honor has
`them in front of you. So it's slide 19, the one entitled
`"imitation is not flattery, "we have an e-mail from
`Mr. Afrouzi of bObsweep. And he is discussing with his
`brother, Masih Afrouzi of bObsweep, that it's -- and they
`are debating whether or not the product is too close to the
`iRobot product.
` And you don't usually see terms like "knockoff"
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`or "Chinese copy" in a document of this -- of this kind.
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` At the lower part of the slide, we have an
`additional message, this one is from Irobot, which is part
`of the --
` MS. REYNOLDS: Excuse me, your Honor, I really
`hate to interrupt an opening, but even though the slide is
`not up, this is still CBI that's being discussed.
` JUDGE PENDER: I understand you call it CBI, but
`if I was asked to rule on this as CBI, I'd have a hard time
`understanding why it is CBI. Can you -- can you educate to
`me as to why this is CBI?
` And the reason is I am particularly sensitive to
`the fact that CBI is overused here at the Commission. We
`don't have any problem protecting what ought to be
`protected, but for heaven's sakes, I mean, you know. Why
`is this CBI?
` MS. REYNOLDS: Your Honor, I have not had an
`opportunity to review this. I just heard --
` JUDGE PENDER: You're not answering my question.
`Why is this CBI?
` MS. REYNOLDS: Your Honor, if you could please
`look at CX-0986C, the highlighted portion, and I don't want
`to read this out.
` JUDGE PENDER: I understand that. But I don't
`see anything that is CBI about that. It's not cost or
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`pricing information. It is -- you know, I can almost take
`judicial -- you're not explaining to me why this is CBI.
`You're not -- you're not persuading me. In fact, you're
`doing the opposite of persuading me.
` Because something hurts too much doesn't make it
`CBI.
` MS. REYNOLDS: Your Honor --
` JUDGE PENDER: I rule it's not CBI. I will take
`the hit on it. It's not CBI. I have not heard a
`reasonable explanation of why it is CBI. If you can -- if
`you want to file later and establish why it's CBI, that's
`one thing. But right now, you haven't done it.
` But anyway, I don't think there's anybody in
`this room who is not subject to the protective order
`anyway. I mean --
` MR. CORDELL: We do have a couple of the iRobot
`folks in the back, your Honor.
` JUDGE PENDER: Yeah, but for heaven's sakes,
`what -- this is -- see, that's why I don't find it to be
`CBI. I don't see how anybody gets a technical advantage
`out of any of this or any kind of a business advantage from
`this. This is something everybody knows.
` All right. Move on from this slide, then,
`Mr. Cordell.
` MR. CORDELL: Thank you, your Honor. Going now
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`to slide 20, which we've also blocked out, we have an
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`excerpt -- what we were talking about before, were bObsweep
`and Silver Star, xRobot, now we have moved on to ZhiYi
`iLife, and here we have the testimony of Mr. Song, one of
`their witnesses.
` And he was asked very candidly, did you look at
`the iRobot products, and he said all aspects. And then
`what I don't have on this slide is him going on to discuss
`all of the various components, you can see it in the
`citation at the bottom, that they focused on, as they were
`designing the ZhiYi iLife products. Pretty much every
`aspect of the robot they considered.
` Then at slide 21, I have another message, this
`is going back to xRobot and Silver Star, where they were
`discussing with business partners what they should do in
`terms of the design of the device. And they specifically
`recommended using iRobot's design, and in particular, the
`collision of the machine to be triggered in advance, so
`that what they're talking about here is that soft touch
`aspect of the iRobot design that's in the patents and is
`very, very important.
` JUDGE PENDER: What -- I see this evidence here,
`or what will be evidence, I don't know whether it's been
`moved into evidence yet, Mr. Cordell.
` It's -- it's self-proving, so to speak. But
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`what part of the case is it most relevant to?
` MR. CORDELL: So it impacts on secondary
`considerations, we've got some copying evidence.
` JUDGE PENDER: I was thinking so.
` MR. CORDELL: It also colors some of the
`infringement case. When we hear from Respondents, you
`know, that they believe that they have shortened the
`bristle length and that somehow avoids infringement, the
`fact that they took the iRobot design and used it to then
`create their own, I think does --
` JUDGE PENDER: Well, you know, we make an art of
`design-around, and that bugs me, frankly. I mean, you
`know, I don't think anybody ever intended that to be an
`industry in and of itself, but it is.
` But I get your point. In other words, what
`you're saying is it's a relationship issue there.
` Now -- and so if you have evidence that takes
`this -- these slides or whatever, the information on these
`slides, and you can point to claims and stuff like that,
`then it gets a little more credible, you know what I mean?
`The allegation of infringement gets a little more credible,
`I think anyway. At least to me.
` MR. CORDELL: Well, and certainly the slide that
`I just showed your Honor impacts the 553 case, and it
`shows --
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` JUDGE PENDER: Right, right. And when it talks
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`about the cushioning space, et cetera.
` MR. CORDELL: That's right. The soft touch.
` JUDGE PENDER: Yeah, I get it.
` MR. CORDELL: And the last one of these I'll do,
`there are others, but I'll cut this off, is at slide 22,
`where the Respondents knew they would face reckoning, they
`knew that what they were doing would likely get attention,
`and they specifically knew that this would result in their
`products getting stuck at the port.
` JUDGE PENDER: See, if this was in district
`court and there was infringement found here, the judge
`would be trebling damages, because he would find that it
`was -- if there was infringement of a valid patent, he
`would find that that was deliberate. Okay.
` MR. CORDELL: Certainly suggests that they knew
`exactly what they were getting into and why.
` So with that, your Honor, let me turn back to
`the patents in suit. And no one will dispute that this is
`public. We start with the '553. This is what we call the
`light touch patent, and it does -- it does deal with the
`idea that you have sensors in software so that when the
`robot approaches an obstacle, it knows that it's there, and
`it slows down.
` And while, you know, I'm not here to testify, I
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`can tell you that when I bought my first iRobot, this was
`the feature my wife was interested in. She actually didn't
`care if it cleaned or not. She sat there and watched the
`thing to make sure it wasn't going to ding up her
`furniture.
` So we had a long trial period where she was
`watching it run around the floor and go into different
`rooms, and it amazed her that it would slow down, and when
`it approached one of their antiques, it didn't bash into
`it, at least not as hard. That was very, very important.
`And it's --
` JUDGE PENDER: I'm wondering how close to
`judicial notice do I take to the fact -- I'm being serious,
`I know it's funny, but how close to judicial no