`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`____________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`____________
`
`DELPHI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY, INC.,
`Patent Owner.
`____________
`
`Case IPR2017-00861 (Patent 7,627,708 B2)
` Case IPR2017-00864 (Patent 7,523,243 B2)1
`____________
`
`Record of Oral Hearing
`Held: June 14, 2018
`____________
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`Before BRIAN J. McNAMARA, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
`MATTHEW R. CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judges.
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`Case IPR2017-00861 (Patent 7,627,708 B2)
`Case IPR2017-00864 (Patent 7,523,243 B2)
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`APPEARANCES:
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`ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER:
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`
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`SCOTT A. MCKEOWN, ESQUIRE
`Ropes & Gray, LLP
`2099 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
`Washington, DC 20006-6807
`202-508-4600
`Scott.mckeown@ropesgray.com
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`
`ON BEHALF OF THE PATENT OWNER:
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`BRIAN C. BANNER, ESQUIRE
`BRUCE W. SLAYDEN II, ESQUIRE
`Slayden Grubert Beard,
`401 Congress Avenue, Suite 1900
`Austin, Texas 78701
`512-402-3552
`bbanner@sgbfirm.com & bslayden@sgbfirm.com
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`
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`
`
`The above-entitled matter came on for hearing on Thursday, June 14,
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`2018, commencing at 1:00 p.m., at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,
`600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia.
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`Case IPR2017-00864 (Patent 7,523,243 B2)
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`P R O C E E D I N G S
`MR. DILL: All rise.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Please be seated. Okay. Good afternoon,
`everyone. This is the oral hearing in -- it's a consolidated oral hearing for
`cases IPR2017-00861 and 00864.
`And we have, Counsel for Petitioner, introduce yourself first.
`MR. McKEOWN: Scott McKeown of Ropes & Gray for Petitioner.
`I'm joined today by Brandan McLaughlin who is a Summer Associate
`controlling the technology.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: All right. Thank you very much. Patent
`Owner?
`MR. BANNER: Thank you, Your Honor. Brian Banner with Slayden
`Grubert Beard, on behalf of the Patent Owner Microchip Technology
`Incorporated; and with me today is Bruce Slayden, who is the lead Counsel
`in the case.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Thank you very much. As you can tell, I am
`Judge McNamara. And Judges Fishman and Clements are participating
`remotely. So, to the extent that you can, make sure that you identify any
`demonstrative or other document that you might be referring to during your
`arguments so that they can access that remotely.
`Let me see. Each party in this case will have 60 minutes for
`argument, and so the Petitioner will go first. Present its case on the
`challenged claims, and then he can preserve some -- Petitioner may reserve
`time for rebuttal. Patent Owner will then proceed to present its argument.
`And lastly, the Petitioner can make use of any time that's reserved to rebut
`the Patent Owner's opposition.
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`Oh. I forgot to mention. Also, we have with us, attending in Denver,
`a detailee Examiner by the name of Ryan Coyer, and so he will be present at
`the hearing as well.
`Before we begin I also want to talk about the Patent Owner's request
`for a rehearing of the Panel's post-SAS decision to institute on all claims of
`all grounds. Just so you know, the Panel will request additional briefing on
`this issue, and we'll enter an order shortly as to what kind of briefing, and
`how extensive that briefing will be.
`To the extent that either party wants to comment on the matter today,
`they are welcome to do so, it will be treated as part of your arguments, so it
`will count against whatever time limitations are in the 60 minutes.
`Are there any questions? And is every one ready to proceed? All
`right; then let's begin with the Petitioner.
`MR. McKEOWN: Good morning. And may it please the Board. I
`would like to --
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Oh. How much -- did you want to reserve
`for rebuttal?
`MR. McKEOWN: I reserve 30 minutes for rebuttal.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Thirty minutes, so I will let you know then
`when 30 minutes is up. Okay.
`MR. McKEOWN: Good morning. May it please the Board. Scott
`McKeown of Ropes & Gray, for Petitioner; as I said, I'm joined today by
`Brandan McLaughlin, a Summer Associate.
`So, we've reserved time for rebuttal. I did want to briefly comment on
`the re-hearing issue, as I believe I can greatly simplify that. Petitioner
`expressly withdraws grounds 4 through 6, so that will leave, at least
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`according to the demonstratives of the Patent Owner here today, they believe
`that this issue still impacts ground 3. I don't believe that's the case. Ground
`3 has been instituted, so in our view that rehearing request has been mooted,
`but we'll look to the Board's order for any clarification in that regard.
`Next, we have one other housekeeping issue. As the Panel may recall,
`we had a call last Thursday I believe it was, on that call Patent Owner
`represented that they were recording the call and transcribing it, and
`committed to upload a transcript of that call. That transcript was not
`uploaded with the objections filed last Friday.
`I contacted the Patent Owner and indicated that I was hoping to see
`that uploaded by Monday, or we would need to contact the Board. At that
`point Patent Owner indicated that they were unable to record the call, they
`had technical difficulties. They were unable to record any of it.
`So, that was the first I've heard of that on Monday. As a compromise,
`they proposed a generic stipulation which their proposed language was little
`more than the description of why they requested the call, and that the Board
`denied their request. Petitioner did not agree with that, because obviously it
`left out the basis for the Board's decision.
`I think from the Board's perspective, the ship has sailed on this
`dispute, but what I would like to request is authorization to upload the email
`correspondence that was discussed on that call.
`From the Petitioner's perspective, the additional briefing was denied
`for two reasons, one of which was the Patent Owner waived the opportunity
`to submit evidence that was provided by the Board on its May 10th order.
`And then secondarily, when the Petitioner submitted declaration
`evidence, and offered the deposition of that declarant to the Patent Owner,
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`the Patent Owner declined. So, the Patent Owner waived evidence on two
`separate occasions.
`Our concern here is that on appeal, with the record incomplete as to
`the deposition, that there may be some mischaracterization. So, we request
`that we upload exhibits just limited to the email correspondence without
`commentary just so that the record is complete, and the Board can rule on
`that today, or issue that in the same order that it's contemplating for the
`rehearing request.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Okay. Let me ask you a quick question on
`the -- what you refer to as the withdrawal of grounds 4 through 6. Are you
`requesting adverse judgment on them?
`MR. McKEOWN: We are -- we did not want -- I should take a step
`back. In our supplemental briefing we did not brief those grounds, so the
`Patent Owner didn’t waste any resources; the Board hasn’t wasted any
`resources. So as to those grounds, yes, I believe that's accurate that --
`JUDGE McNAMARA: So basically, you're abandoning the contest
`as to those grounds. Is that right?
`MR. McKEOWN: Exactly.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Okay.
`MR. McKEOWN: Just as to those grounds. Grounds 1 through 3, so
`just so the record is clear, ground 1 being the Furukawa 102 ground, ground
`2 being the Dickens 102 ground, and ground 3 being Furukawa and Dickens
`-- excuse me -- Furukawa and Chen, and Dickens and Chen. So, those are
`the grounds that will remain active. As to the other grounds which depend
`upon the USB reference and some others, we waive, or expressly withdraw
`those grounds.
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`JUDGE McNAMARA: Okay. And be careful about the terminology
`here, you can't just withdraw, the question is now, it's are you requesting
`adverse judgment on those?
`MR. McKEOWN: Well, my understanding from other cases is that's
`the language that's been used, I'm expressly withdrawing them. I haven't
`looked to those cases to see how the Board has treated those expressed
`withdrawals, but I understand that that's been authorized in other cases. I
`don't know that there's a distinction there.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Well, there may be. I don't know, and I'm
`not ready -- as to the law what the estoppel effect of that might be. There's
`clearly an estoppel effect as to adverse judgment.
`MR. McKEOWN: Right, exactly. So, had we waived briefing, I
`would expect those grounds to show up in the final written decision as
`losses. So, by expressly withdrawing them we, you know -- where the
`estoppel impact is, I'm not trying to be clever here, I'm just trying to simplify
`this rehearing issue, we just don't see it as important, and brief these issues
`in whatever way we can do to simplify that, we are open to doing that.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: Well, okay. I guess what I'm saying is, we
`might accept the joint motion to withdraw grounds, okay, but the unilateral
`motion to withdraw is not something that, I think our Board has really
`provided for. On the other hand, we can accept a motion for adverse
`judgment on the grounds that you’ve abandoned the contest with respect to
`those particular grounds; and if that that's how you want to proceed, that's
`fine.
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`MR. McKEOWN: Yeah. That's how I want to proceed, Your Honor.
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`JUDGE McNAMARA: Okay. All right then, we'll take that then as
`oral motion for adverse judgment on grounds 4 through 6, and as
`abandoning the contest, on grounds 4 though 6.
`MR. McKEOWN: Exactly, Judge. As I mentioned before this would
`be -- grounds 1 through 3 would remain in the case.
`JUDGE McNAMARA: All right. Thank you. And then the other
`issue, I guess we'll take that up and issue some kind of ruling on that.
`MR. McKEOWN: Okay. Thank you, Your Honor. So, let's start at
`the beginning. I think it's helpful to look at the claim itself. And so for the
`remote Judges' benefit, I'm looking at pages 6 through 7 of the 708 patent
`which is just -- I'm just pulling it up here because it has a large version of the
`claim language in the 708 patent. And there's been a couple issues that have
`been briefed in this case, all of which, frankly, refer to the top of page 7. So,
`this is the idea of a device as claimed doing a couple things here.
`So, simultaneously enumerating and configuring the USB multi-host
`device, and simultaneous access of the USB multi-host device -- excuse me -
`- and then providing alternate access of the USB function block without
`reconfiguring or re-enumerating.
`So, what this is referring to, just sort of in more general terms, and
`this is in the petition at pages 14 through 23, is some concepts known in the
`USB art. So, you know, what is enumeration and configuration? Well,
`when you plug your USB device into a host, that host will discover that
`device, exchange some messages with that device, and in that way
`enumerate that device and then configure that device, so provide it with the
`drivers and addressing, et cetera, to communicate.
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`So, I don't think there's any dispute in the record as to what
`enumeration is, and how it relates to these claims.
`And so then we have the next portion of the claim, which is the
`access, which refers to the ability, once these connections are set up, to
`essentially use them, or access the device that's been connected to them, and
`in the case of this patent, there's redundant connections that are provided.
`And so then the last portion of the claim relates to this concept of
`alternately accessing without remuneration, which gets to a distinction
`between what typically happens in the USB connection, which is, you can
`actually -- the USB device you configure it, you enumerate it, you
`communicate your data, and then another device will come along, maybe,
`and use that connection, and then every time, that original device wants to
`connect again, it has to go through that enumeration process, that
`configuration.
`So these are sort of the key concepts of this claim, and what's been
`briefed. Now, there is some confusion that's been introduced into the record,
`and I would submit that this is confusion that the Patent Owner has
`submitted, or argued at least, this idea of connections in the sense of the
`USB connection, and a connection to transfer data.
`The latter connection, the connection to actually transfer data is
`always a one-to-one connection, at least in the Bohm patents, and as well in
`the prior art. So, the way the system works, you’ve got two hosts that are
`connected in the USB sense, they have access in the USB sense, and then the
`question becomes, it's time to communicate.
`So, how do we communicate? Well, at that point some requests are
`sent, an arbitration function is done, and there's a one-to-connection made
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`with the peripheral, whatever it is, the other connection may go into a
`memory, while the first device is communicated, so in this way, there is
`simultaneous USB connections, but the connection for the data transfer is
`distinct from the connections that are claimed.
`And so what you see in this record, and this happened particularly
`with the Furukawa grounds, is that there was this identification of aspects of
`Furukawa that's described in the data transfer, this one-to-one connection,
`and they said, ah-ah, our claims are to simultaneous connections, this is one-
`to-one, it doesn’t meet the claim terms.
`So, in the supplemental briefing on Furukawa in particular what we
`explained is, to the extent there's any difference between the Bohm patents
`and Furukawa, it's that Furukawa has more description of the data transfer
`process. It doesn’t describe anything differently.
`If you look through the Bohm patents you'll find the same, exact
`discussion of how data is transferred, so if you look at, for example, column
`4, line 22 through 29 of this reference, you'll see this language in that section
`of, "to access shared peripheral function," this is about four sentences down
`in that paragraph, "either interleaving host accesses, or by using a common
`request/grant structure that may hold-off one host while another host
`competes a data transfer to/from shared device."
`So, again, this is describing the actual transfer of data, and that is a
`one-to-one connection. That's the way it's described in the Bohm patents.
`That's the way it's described in the Furukawa patent. And so the
`supplemental briefing on Furukawa points that out.
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`So, as to this language in the claims, I think it's also helpful to walk
`through the prosecution history, because the applicant made this perfectly
`clear in their arguments to the Patent Office as well, so if we could go to --
`JUDGE FISHMAN: Counsel, this is Judge Fishman. Can you hear
`
`me?
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`MR. McKEOWN: Yes, Your Honor.
`JUDGE FISHMAN: Before you move on. Patent Owner has made
`an argument that essentially what you're presenting now, which was in your
`supplemental reply, essentially that's a new argument. Can you help us
`understand why that is or is not a new argument? Can you help us
`understand where that is in the underlying petition?
`MR. McKEOWN: Sure. So, as we presented in the petition of
`Furukawa's 102 ground, we identified the various features that I just
`discussed in that petition, post-SAS we were granted an opportunity to
`supplement the record, at least with respect to rebuttal evidence and
`arguments that were in response to the institution decision. So, what we
`were -- what we argued in that supplemental briefing is, if you look at what
`is disclosed in Furukawa, the full disclosure which was cited in the petition,
`not just the truncated sentences, argued by the Patent Owner, these features
`are disclosed.
`So, one of ordinary skill in the art reading this description of loading
`drivers and connecting in a USB sense in Furukawa, and sharing the
`peripheral, and putting some data in a FIFO while you're allowing another
`host to communicate to that peripheral, is exactly what the claims describe.
`So, it's not a new argument. It's just a continuation of what's in the
`petition. These features are in Furukawa. They are described that way. One
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`of ordinary skill in the art recognizes them as such, and so that's what we
`filed in the supplemental briefing. It's still a 102 argument, we are still
`pointing to the very same features. They tried to argue that, no, now this is
`an inherency argument. This is not an inherency argument. Inherency was
`raised in the Board's rehearing decision.
`What we are saying is these features are there. When you talk about
`loading a driver, you're talking about enumerating. There's no dispute that
`that's part of this enumerating and configuration process, and that was also
`presented in the petition in the definition of enumerating. So, when we point
`to things, like loading drivers, that's enumeration. It's just another way of
`saying it. We are not saying something isn't there that should be described,
`we are saying it's described, but there's not a one-for-one word
`correspondence.
`So, it's not a different argument. It's just a rebuttal of the Board's
`position after seeing the Patent Owner argue this connection distinction,
`which I'll go through in a minute, this idea of sort of plucking out one half-
`sentence of the reference and saying: ah-ah, it talks about one-to-one
`connections, therefore, there's no shared USB connections.
`Again, the only difference between Furukawa and these patents; is
`Furukawa has more description on the data transfer, where these patents
`mention it in passing, in a sentence or two to say, well, we have an
`arbitration block, and as requests come in we can figure out which one we
`want to service first. So, it's not a new argument.
`Let me walk through the prosecution history a little bit, just sort of
`following up on the definitions of some of these features that appear in the
`claim. So, in the prosecution the Examiner came back and said, well, you
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`know, wait a minute, you’ve claimed this idea of not re-enumerating, and
`not disconnecting but, you know, where is that in your figures? And so this
`is Exhibit 1014 at page 12, we start to see the explanation.
`So, what the Office Action argued: so because it's well known, that
`when a USB device is disconnect, and reconnect, they are reconfigured re-
`enumerated, so why is it required -- so why is -- but there isn't much to --
`anyway, so without, basically they're saying -- I may have garbled that -- but
`you know, where is this in the figures, where is this idea that you can
`provide this communication without reconfiguration or re-enumeration.
`So the Patent Owner explained, starting on page 13, sort of in the
`middle paragraph here, so it's talking about the Würzburg reference which
`the Patent Owner also describes in its briefing, and it's distinguishing over
`Würzburg, which was more of a traditional disconnect and re-enumerate,
`and so towards the end of that paragraph there's a sentence that begins
`"instead" so: “Instead, the disclosure of the present invention is directed to
`arbitrating between access requests received from multiple hosts, and is
`further directed to the concept that hosts may actually simultaneously issue
`these access requests.”
`Therefore one skilled in the art would recognize, because no host is
`disconnected from the USB device, the USB device may not have to be
`reconfigured or re-enumerated. So, the takeaway from this paragraph is that
`arbitrating between access requests means two devices are simultaneously
`re-enumerated, that's essentially the argument that was made."
`And so then we continue on to the top of page 14, a little bit more, and
`it quotes from the specification, it says, "each host has simultaneously
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`enumerated the device, there may be no need to detach and reconfigure the
`device on the fly."
`So, again, we are talking about simultaneously enumerated means no
`reason to attach. There's no dispute that all of the art in this case does
`exactly that, it simultaneously enumerated.
`A little bit further down we have a discussion on page 14, in that
`paragraph that begins, "Accordingly, Applicant respectfully resubmits that
`the embodiment disclosed in Figure 3 clearly shows concurrent respective
`dedicated connections established between USB multi-host device controller
`108, and the upstream ports 302 and 304 through buffers 306 and 308,
`respectively." So, that's the USB connections.
`And then we go down to the bottom of that paragraph and it talks
`about, "Finally --" and this is a direct quote from the specification, " USB
`multi-host device controller 108 may be configured with an internal
`arbitration mechanism that may permit each host – first host 102 and second
`host 104, for example – to access shared peripheral function 312 by either
`interleaving host accesses, or by using a common request/grant structure
`that may hold-off one host while another host completes a data transfer."
`So, you see in this paragraph the distinction between USB
`connections being, I've connected to the two hosts with the multi-host
`device, so I've established the connections, they are available for access, and
`when I want to communicate data, I can arbitrate and decide which one-to-
`one connection that I want to actually connect to the destination. That's
`exactly what the prior art shows.
`And pointing to that last sentence that's in your own patent, as a point
`of distinction, it just doesn’t work.
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`So, these claims require the simple concept of enumerating two hosts
`to one peripheral so that there is simultaneous access, and then later when
`the request comes along to transmit the data, arbitrating those requests so
`that there can be a sharing of the peripheral. The fact that the prior art shows
`data connections, one-to-one for transmitting data, just like these patents, is
`not a point of distinction.
`So, with that on the claims, let me jump into Furukawa. So, this is --
`let me just shrink that down a little bit -- so, just for the benefit of the remote
`judges, I'm looking at Figure 3 of Furukawa. And so you see at the top of
`that figure we have connections to two hosts through ports 302, 304, and
`then we have a designation in that square, that square in the middle, USB
`endpoint and status. So, this is what is described as the USB connection,
`and then the multi-host controller provides a connection to the device
`function which is the logical element Figure 3 is a logical diagram, that's
`how it's described.
`So, again, you’ve got two enumerated connections, they are both
`accessible to the host simultaneously as those request to transmit come in,
`there's an arbitration, there's a connection at the end. This is exactly what --
`sorry, so this is Bohm; if I said Furukawa, I take that back. But you'll see
`why I confused the two, as we get to the Furukawa figure, you'll see that this
`is almost the exact same schematic.
`So, the reason why Furukawa was denied this institution as I said was
`this idea that Furukawa was a one-to-one connection, so let's get into that a
`little bit. And so, yes, sorry, Furukawa was a little bit hard to see in this
`figure, and again, for the remote Judges, I'm looking at Figure 1 of
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`Case IPR2017-00861 (Patent 7,627,708 B2)
`Case IPR2017-00864 (Patent 7,523,243 B2)
`
`Furukawa, and this appears on, I think it's page 3 of the Petitioner's
`supplemental brief, if you need to find it.
`So, just like that figure from the Bohm patents you see some PCs at
`the top, you see individual connections to the ports, that's the sort of little --
`tiny little white rectangles on top of the red box there, and we've got a
`controller in there, which has FIFO memories from managing dual
`transmissions from two different hosts to go to a single device.
`That's exactly what Furukawa describes, it's exactly what's in these
`patents. And we can start reviewing Furukawa just by reading the abstract.
`So, the abstract, to provide the USB hub when the plurality of host
`computers -- are able to share a peripheral device -- and wherein no
`switching operating is required; we've explained in the supplemental
`briefing, as laid out in Furukawa, this no switching operation refers to the
`typical USB enumeration, and there's direct testimony in the record on that
`that stands unrebutted.
`We next move to paragraph 3 of Furukawa, which talks about this
`explicitly the problem -- so the paragraph 3 of Furukawa explains the
`problem of switching overhead in a conventional USB environment, this
`includes loading of drivers, as I pointed out, at pages 34 through 35 of -- this
`is at least in the 708 petition, and the page numbers may be slightly different
`on the other. But we explained that loading of drivers is part of this process
`that nobody wants to do when they are switching between these devises and
`trying to share them.
`So, then we go on to paragraph 5, "Thus enabling the existence of a
`plurality of host computers even under the USB interface." So, again,
`avoiding the conventional switching operations even under the USB
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`Case IPR2017-00861 (Patent 7,627,708 B2)
`Case IPR2017-00864 (Patent 7,523,243 B2)
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`interface, that paragraph continues, "Moreover, there was no overhead in
`having to -- in having to load and unload the device driver sequentially each
`time a connection is established or released." So, we are avoiding all of that,
`just like the Bohm patents.
`And then we get to paragraph 6, which talks about the use for the
`FIFO memory in Furukawa. And it explains,
`Furthermore, if there is a request from one or more of the host
`computers for transmission or reception of data to one peripheral
`device, preferably the controlling circuit establishes a connection
`between one of the host computers and the one peripheral device, and
`holds temporarily, in the FIFO memory, the data from another host
`computer until the transmission or reception of the data of the host
`computer that is connected is completed. Doing so avoids the collision
`of data from a plurality of host computers.
`So, what it's saying is, we have two hosts communicating to a
`peripheral simultaneously, we have a one-to-one connection, we put the rest
`in memory until the other connection is done. That's exactly like the Bohm
`patents.
`So, the distinction again that has been made to Furukawa has been one
`of how the data is transmitted, the claims of this patent; at least independent
`claims don't get to that step. And these patents don't describe this
`communication in the same detail as Furukawa.
`But let's go to Patent Owner's slide 12, which is essentially the
`entirety of their argument against Furukawa. They say, well, Furukawa at
`paragraph 10, states: that insofar as there is no redundancy in the request
`destination, a plurality of host pieces can access the peripheral device
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`Case IPR2017-00861 (Patent 7,627,708 B2)
`Case IPR2017-00864 (Patent 7,523,243 B2)
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`simultaneously. And according to the Patent Owner this confirms that
`simultaneous access to peripherals only occurs when the two hosts request
`access to different request destinations.
`But this is incorrect, and you sort of have to ask yourself, well, why is
`it that the Patent Owner has cited half of a sentence out of paragraph 10 of
`Furukawa? And the reason is fairly simple, is the rest of that paragraph
`doesn’t support what they are arguing. Indeed the rest of the sentence
`doesn’t support -- excuse me -- doesn’t mean what they're arguing.
`So, looking at paragraph 10, you'll see the very first sentence: “The
`bus 12 is the communication path for transmitting data.” We are talking
`about one-to-one connections that are established to transmit the data. This
`is completely independent of the concept of simultaneous enumeration and
`having USB connections available for two different hosts to the same
`peripheral.
`And I won't go through reading that paragraph, but you can go
`through that paragraph, we are talking about a controlling circuit. We are
`talking about the peripheral, and that in so far at the bottom, is the last half
`of a sentence that explicitly states the connection that is set up as a one-to-
`one connection, and that is for transmitting data.
`So, this is not a point of distinction, it's one half sentence out of this
`reference, we've explained going to the abstract, the paragraphs that I just
`mentioned, that the full and fair reading of Furukawa is it operates just like
`these inventions.
`But let's look at some additional paragraphs of Furukawa which
`explain this in explicit detail.
`JUDGE FISHMAN: Counselor, this is Judge Fishman.
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`MR. McKEOWN: Mm-hmm, yes.
`JUDGE FISHMAN: In that same paragraph it refers to the
`connection being released, what does it mean in your mind, that the
`connection is released?
`MR. McKEOWN: So, this gets back to what the Bohm patents
`describe as arbitration, so Furukawa and Bohm operate the same exact way,
`and connection is used sort of loosely throughout these patents, but the idea
`is you are providing complete access from the USB connection to the
`peripheral, and then you release that at -- you sort of release that connection,
`and you can switch over to the other.
`So, this is just a concept of, at some point in time, there was this
`temporary path that's complete that goes all the way through to the
`peripheral. And you have to switch that connection to allow different hosts
`to provide data to that peripheral.
`So, connection in this sense, is the full data path as opposed to what's
`clamed in the patent which is a USB connection, which, if I could backtrack
`a little bit, the patent describes at -- so in the 708 patent, column 2, lines 31
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