Paper No. 38
`
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`
`
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`
`______
`
`
`CHEGG INC., MATCH GROUP, LLC.,
`AND RPX CORPORATION,
`
`
`
`
`
`Trials@uspto.gov
`571-272-7822
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`
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`
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`
`
`
`
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`NETSOC, LLC.,
`
`Patent Owner.
`
`___________
`
`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
`___________
`
`Record of Oral Hearing
`Held: September 9, 2020
`____________
`
`
`
`Before KALYAN K. DESHPANDE, SHEILA F. MCSHANE, and
`STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`
`
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`
`______
`
`
`CHEGG INC., MATCH GROUP, LLC.,
`AND RPX CORPORATION,
`
`
`
`
`
`Trials@uspto.gov
`571-272-7822
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`NETSOC, LLC.,
`
`Patent Owner.
`
`___________
`
`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
`___________
`
`Record of Oral Hearing
`Held: September 9, 2020
`____________
`
`
`
`Before KALYAN K. DESHPANDE, SHEILA F. MCSHANE, and
`STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`
`
`
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`
`
`
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
`
`
`
`APPEARANCES:
`
`ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER:
`
`
`ROBERT L. GREESON, ESQUIRE
`Norton, Rose, Fulbright U.S., LLP
`2200 Ross Avenue
`Suite 3600
`Dallas, TX 75201
`
`
`
`
`ON BEHALF OF PATENT OWNER:
`
`
`WILLIAM P. RAMEY, ESQUIRE
`Ramey & Schwaller, LLP
`5020 Montrose Blvd.
`Suite 750
`Houston, TX 77006
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`The above-entitled matter came on for hearing on Wednesday,
`September 9, 2020, commencing at 10:59 a.m., EDT, by video/by telephone.
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`P R O C E E D I N G S
` - - - - -
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Good morning everyone. I'm Judge
`
`Amundson and with me on the panel are Judges Deshpande and
`McShane. We have our final hearing in IPR 2019-01171, Chegg
`Inc., Match Group, LLC and RPX Corporation v Netsoc, LLC
`which concerns U.S. patent No. 9,978,107. Let's get the parties
`appearances, please. Who do we have for Petitioner?
`
`MR. GREESON: This is Robert Greeson with Norton,
`Rose, Fulbright U.S. LLP here on behalf of Petitioners.
`
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: And will you be presenting the
`argument?
`
`MR. GREESON: Yes, Your Honor.
`
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right, thank you. And for
`Patent Owner, who do we have?
`
`MR. RAMEY: Good morning, Your Honor. Good morning
`Judge Amundson, Judge Deshpande and Judge McShane, Bill
`Ramey for the Patent Owner for U.S. 9,978,107 and I'll be
`presenting the argument today. With me also though is Dr.
`Melissa Schwaller. She won't be presenting argument. Thank
`you.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right, and pardon the
`
`duplication but we've got separate hearings here, so again we
`want to thank you for your flexibility in conducting the hearing
`by video. We know that this departs from our typical practice
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`and because of that we wanted to start by addressing a few items.
`First, our main concern is your right to be heard and if at any
`time during the hearing you encounter any technical difficulties
`or difficulties communicating, please let us know immediately,
`for example by contacting the team members who provided you
`with the connection information. Second, when not speaking
`please mute yourself. Third, please identify yourself each time
`you speak. That will help the court reporter with the transcript.
`Fourth, we have the entire record. We've got all the
`demonstratives and when referring to a demonstrative or an
`exhibit or a paper please do so by identifying the slide number or
`the page number, and then if you could try to pause a little bit to
`give everybody else a chance to get to the right slide or page
`number. And fifth we set forth the procedure for today's hearing
`in our Trial Order but just to remind everyone the way this will
`work, each party will have 45 minutes to present arguments.
`Petitioner has the burden and will go first and may reserve
`time for rebuttal. Patent Owner will go next and may reserve
`time for sur-rebuttal. Please remember that the demonstratives
`that you submitted are not part of the record. The transcript will
`serve as the record of the hearing. And regarding the objections
`to the demonstratives that you submitted, the panel can
`determine the appropriateness of the arguments and the evidence,
`and also please do not interrupt the other party while it is
`presenting its arguments. If you have an objection, please raise
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`it during your argument. It will keep time, and I will try to give
`you a warning when you're reaching the end of your time. Are
`there any questions before we proceed?
`MR. RAMEY: No questions for Patent Owner.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right, Mr. Greeson. Do you
`want to reserve any time for rebuttal?
`MR. GREESON: Yes, I would like to reserve 15 minutes
`for rebuttal.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right, very well.
`MR. GREESON: Okay. Unless the Board has any initial
`questions or comments I'll go ahead and get started. As the
`Board knows, the references Collins and Walker are involving
`the combination that addressed the large majority of the claims.
`Referring to Petitioner's demonstrative exhibit page 7, I believe
`that the record shows that the issues in dispute are relatively
`narrow and first, the first issue is whether or not the Patent
`Owner can swear behind Collins and the second with respect to
`any substantive claim limitations at issue, it's paired down to
`element [e] which involves enabling the user to send an inquiry
`message while shielding contact information.
`I'll address issue No. 1 and referring to slide 16. I will
`begin with the issue that the Patent Owner cannot swear behind
`the September 3rd, 2003 filing date of the provisional patent
`application because it's a threshold issue. In short, the Patent
`Owner should not be able to swear behind Collins because it has
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`provided no corroborating evidence accompanying Ms. White's
`declaration. In this case, Ms. White refers only to the
`provisional application itself to corroborate the dates recited in
`her own declaration, and it is clear in the record this is a circular
`proposition and impermissible under case law. Of note,
`Petitioners pointed out that the general rule is that conception
`must be proved by corroborating evidence and, for example, it
`must be corroborated with evidence which shows that the
`inventor disclosed to others the complete thought expressed in
`the application. Certainly there is no such evidence here and the
`Patent Owner cannot argue otherwise. It is also of note that the
`Patent Owner’s briefing has relied upon the Spero case for the
`idea that it should be able to rely on the provisional application
`as proof of conception.
`That case does not apply here. If your read Spero , first it's
`in the context of an interference, but the thrust is that a working
`draft which is essentially identical to the application at issue
`could be considered as proof of conception. We certainly don't
`have that case here. The provisional application itself is a hodge
`podge of undated and dated documents with the dates spanning
`over two and a half years and so there's no -- if any dates were
`created, for example, after August 15th, 2003 which is the
`critical date assigned to Collins.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Judge Amundson here. I had a
`question on that, the Spero case and how it might parallel or not
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`parallel the situation here, and as I understand it, in Spero there
`was a working draft and then there was something called the
`parent that was filed and here I think what we have is we have
`the provisional, Exhibit 1002, and it's got on the first page the
`PTO date stamp , and that was filed on September 3, 2003, and
`then sometime before we've got those same pages that existed
`that don't have a PTO date stamp and so isn't that, well it's not
`an exhibit, but isn't the -- whatever, the version of Exhibit 1002
`without the PTO date stamp, isn't that analogous to the working
`draft in Spero?
`MR. GREESON: No, because in Spero the working draft
`was a draft that was essentially identical to the application at
`issue and as I mentioned here, the so-called or what would be
`analogous to the working draft is really a compilation of
`everything from spreadsheets to handwritten notes and on and on
`that span a date range of two and a half years. So I don't think
`that the drafts at issue are analogous between the two cases.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right. Thank you.
`MR. GREESON: Sure, and secondly the inventor
`declaration itself is inconsistent with the facts. As the Board
`just mentioned a transmittal document was executed by the
`inventor on August 11, 2003 but on its face the provisional was
`not complete at that time. We know from the record that some
`documents were dated August 13 and August 14 while several
`remain undated. Now, a reasonable inference can be drawn that
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`of the dozens of undated documents, certainly some of them
`could have been created or edited or finished on August 16th,
`17th or thereafter and on and on and what we also know is that
`the Patent Office would see the provisional --
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Judge Amundson here. I have a
`follow-up question on that. On that point you're trying to make
`about some of the undated documents could have been created on
`August 16 or later, we have the inventor's declaration and she
`says they're all -- everything was in place by August 14th or
`15th, and I didn’t see among the exhibits her deposition
`transcript, I didn’t even see a deposition notice -- so don't we
`have to accept her declaration testimony on that point?
`MR. GREESON: Not at all. Well, I think that the Board is
`in a position to assign credibility of a declaration but simply
`because we did not depose the inventor doesn't mean that the
`Board's obligated to take it as true and on that point when this
`came up the schedule, and we should all remember that this was
`during the Covid lockdown, Ms. White is a pro se inventor and
`obviously there was going to be some logistical problems with
`arranging a deposition.
`But separately, we looked at the declaration and the
`declaration itself is speculative or at least non- committal. It's
`based on only recollection from 17 years ago and does not even
`confirm a specific date on which the provisional application was
`purportedly mailed and so given the scope of the declaration we
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`felt that there was not much to further examine because, for
`example, the declaration failed to speak to the intellectual
`possession of each of the claimed elements or provide evidence
`that the Patent Owner would rely upon, so frankly we thought
`that the examination itself would be narrow and that we really
`wouldn't be able to get more than the speculative statements that
`were provided in the declaration to begin with. So I think that
`the Board can certainly assign, you know, the declaration the
`credibility for what it's worth but at the end of the day by law an
`uncorroborated declaration is not sufficient.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Well on the -- I understand your
`point about the inventor's testimony seems implausible, and you
`probably have a few other adjectives for it, but are you aware of
`a standard that applies to the Board when we can say okay, this
`is the limit and the testimony goes beyond the limit and we don't
`have to consider that factual testimony?
`MR. GREESON: Sure. So we cited, and if I'm not
`answering your question please jump in and cut me off, but we
`cited a case and gave a parenthetical that shows that conception
`must be proved by corroborating evidence which shows that the
`inventor disclosed to others the complete thought expressed in
`the claimed invention. I don't know if that answered your
`question or not.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Yes, no, I'm sorry. Let me try
`again, I wasn't clear. So, okay, we've got factual testimony from
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`the inventor. Petitioner says it's implausible. What I'm trying to
`understand is if there's some standard, okay, so that says okay,
`this is the line when factual testimony does this or this the Board
`can disregard it and so I'm just trying to understand if you're
`aware of any such standard because I'm not.
`MR. GREESON: Yes. I'm not aware of a standard in
`which the Board could -- well I think the Board has discretion to
`wholly disregard a declaration or not or disregard portions but,
`you know, I am not aware of a standard that's been articulated
`but certainly happy to provide follow-up briefing if that's
`something the Board would be interested in.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right, thank you. So okay, go
`ahead. Sorry to interrupt you.
`MR. GREESON: Not at all, and the last point is something
`that we touched upon, you know, the actual -- the constructive to
`reduction of practice came almost three weeks after Ms. White
`stated that she mailed or had couriered the provisional
`application and so I think that the most reasonable conclusion is
`that Ms. White did not actually mail the application on the dates
`recited in her declaration but perhaps continued working on the
`application after those dates. In sum, I would say look, without
`corroborating evidence, and her testimony is uncorroborated, no,
`well not only uncorroborated but inconsistent with the
`transmittal and the filing dates that came three weeks later, I
`don't think that Patent Owner has come close to being able to
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
`
`show conception and diligence required to swear behind the
`Collins reference.
`Now secondly, and this is a separate but related issue, in
`any event the claims of the 107 patent are not entitled to
`whatever date is assigned to the provisional application because
`the provisional application does not support every claim element.
`So referring to Petitioner's slide 12, I'll point out that the
`provisional application fails to support claim limitation [g] and
`we know what that is. It's updating the rating associated with
`each of the participants based at least on the tracked response
`time. Now here it's important to note that the only ratings that
`are displayed to a user in both the 107 patent and its provisional
`are based on reviews and therefore those ratings are not updated
`based on a tracked response time as required by the claims and I
`think this feature is illustrated by the Patent Owner's own
`citations.
`First, if we look at the Patent Owner's sur-reply and I'll
`refer the Board at Patent Owner's sur-reply page, really this
`citation is page 9, 10, and 11 to 12, there's a citation there that
`says taken from the provisional at pages 35 and 37.
`"All corporate parties are able to distinguish between the
`effectiveness of service providers through a rating
`system/listserv/reviews and other methods that may be written by
`those communicating with all corporate preferred providers."
`So this citation speaks about ratings is those that are
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`written communications by other individuals. Clearly that would
`be a rating based on a review. But further, the Patent Owner
`goes on and at its sur- reply at 9 and 10 it provides a separate
`citation. It says,
`"Corporate Preferred Providers and Global Database."
`Then there's a parenthetical and it says,
`"Deleted upon receipt of poor ratings" -- and here's the
`important part -- "created by employees/family users."
`So even in the instance where a rating leads to a vendor or
`a service provider being suspended or deleted from a system, it's
`done so based on ratings that are created by an individual and, of
`course, this is consistent with the provisional application at
`figure 17 that shows ratings based upon reviews and also at the
`Patent Owner's sur-reply at page 12 there's reference to a rating
`system that involves, for instance stars where, you know, one
`star is assigned a value of one, five stars are assigned a value of
`five and it specifies that the rating still is based on averages and
`so it follows that a vendor's rating changes or is updated as its
`average number of stars, which again are based on reviews, is
`updated. But again, this would not be a tracked response time as
`set forth in the claims. So it's also I think important to
`understand what the Patent Owner has pointed to in trying to
`demonstrate that this feature is in fact in the claims.
`The other, I'll call it category of citations referred to by the
`Patent Owner, involve a tracking and monitoring performance
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`functionality that's really part of a larger vendor, or excuse me, a
`service provider embodiment that really starts at about page 20.
`But the takeaway here is that when there is a mention of keeping
`track of time stamps or the times at which employees and
`vendors communicate with one another, the strong suggestion is
`that in that embodiment that record keeping, that instance of
`recording time and tracking communications is used internally
`and certainly not displayed to a user and not comprising a rating
`that would be displayed to a user much less updated based on a
`tracked response time.
`I'll give you some examples that are taken from the Patent
`Owner's sur-reply at pages 9 through 12 which cites the
`provisional at pages 35 through 38. A few examples. It states,
`"Corporations keep track of their preferred vendors where a
`corporate administrator can track communications."
`So again here we're referring to what corporations do and
`their administrators perform rather than what may be displayed
`to a user or updated with respect to what a user sees in
`accordance with the claim. Another example,
`"The corporation is able to review at what time the
`employee sent his request."
`Finally,
`"Corporations track the time when service providers
`respond to an email."
`And again those citations are at 37 and 38. Secondly, the
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`provisional application fails to support element [d] and I will
`refer the Board to Petitioner's slide 9, and of course element [d]
`is the step that was discussed earlier this morning that involves
`displaying some of the information associated with each of the
`participants where it is based at least in part on a rating of
`individual participants.
`Here, again, the provisional application makes clear that
`conceptually this was absent from the disclosure. I'll start with
`the first portion of the record, or at least earliest in time in the
`Patent Owner's response, the Patent Owner initially relies upon a
`bio search result and points to a list of matched individuals that
`exist in the Online Human Resource or OHR database and ranks
`them according to suitability.
`Now the problem here is this is directly at odds with how
`the Board has stated that it views ratings. In its institution
`decision, the Board clarified that a rating is not based on
`relevance or suitability. So, you know, left at that simply the
`Patent Owner has failed to put on any evidence of a rating being
`displayed to a user in the provisional application. Now, in its
`sur-reply for the first time the Patent Owner points to other
`citations in the provisional application and I refer the Board to
`page 11 that illustrates these new citations and as you can see,
`the Patent Owner points to the provisional application at 20, at
`36, at 38. Earlier I mentioned that at about page 20 the
`provisional begins a description of a, and I think I referred to it
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`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`by the wrong name, but it's a virtual account embodiment and ,
`it's a bit difficult to follow, but if you put the pieces together in
`the provisional, the virtual account embodiment is responsible
`for certain functions performed by the corporation like relocating
`an employee.
`But in that instance, and this is important to note, the
`claims are not invoked. For example, a relocation manager
`selects a category of preferred vendors that would be available
`for the relocating employee and returns that list and makes it
`available online for the employee to then view. So you can look
`at it two ways, either 1) a user is not sending an inquiry message
`and, there are no results based in response to that inquiry
`messag,e or to the extent those limitations are performed, they're
`not performed by the user, that is they're not performed by the
`relocating employee but by the relocation director itself.
`So, for example, the Patent Owner refers to the, well, I'll
`point the Board for clarity here. At the provisional application
`at page 20 I believe and when I say page 20 I'm referring to page
`20 of 171, not the handwritten page 18. But to be clear there's a
`series of steps one through ten that are outlined in this process
`and at steps two and three it's clear that the relocation director
`submits names of preferred providers to the online system. Then
`that information is available for the relocating employee to view.
`Also turning to page 22 describing the same embodiment
`that really encompasses the citations here that the Patent Owner
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`has referred to and are illustrated at slide 11, at page 22 about
`three quarters of the way down it says,
`"When an employee wants to use a service provider there
`will be a list of approved service providers by the corporation."
`
`So again, the fault in Patent Owner's argument here is that
`where it's tried to point to a dis play of ratings, it's pointed to an
`embodiment that does not invoke the claims.
`So turning to the next issue, and I think it's clear that, you
`know, there's only one claim limitation at issue here and that's
`element [e] as I mentioned before and it comes down to enabling
`a user to send an inquiry message to one or more of the multiple
`participants and, of course, we know that shielding the contact
`information from the user has to be done and the contact
`information can include a message identifier associated with
`each of the one or more participants.
`This subject matter is addressed at Petitioner's slide 21. I
`think for context it's important to note Netsoc's interpretation of
`this claim limitation and 1) not only is it wholly unsupported and
`therefore incorrect, but as I'll explain, Collins in view of Walker
`teaches this limitation whether under an appropriate construction
`or even under the incorrect construction offered by Netsoc.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Judge Amundson here. I had a
`couple of things here I wanted to ask about this. Again, sorry
`for the duplication but we've got separate hearings, but in our
`Institution decision the panel construed " contact information"
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`and I didn't see any disagreement in Petitioner's papers with the
`Board's construction of "contact information." So does the
`Petitioner -- do the Petitioners agree or at least accept the
`Board's construction of contact information?
`MR. GREESON: Yes, Petitioners accept that construction.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Okay. And then on the
`patentability issue, as I understand it, it basically boils down -- I
`don't think there's any dispute about how Collins and Walker
`work and that a message goes from a user to the system to a
`participant. So the issue seems to me to boil down to claim
`construction. How do we construe sending an inquiry message?
`Does it encompass an indirect message or is it limited to direct
`messages? Is that accurate?
`MR GREESON: I think that's fair to say and I'm very
`comfortable with saying that every embodiment described in the
`107 patent and the provisional describe an inquiry message as set
`forth in the claims as being sent or routed or dispatched by a
`service.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: I'm sorry, just let me interrupt. But
`you have about five minutes left in your opening, okay? Sorry,
`go ahead.
`MR. GREESON: So, and I say that directly in response to
`Netsoc's incorrect statement that it made in its sur-reply at page
`14 where it boils down to the idea that the 107 patent provides
`embodiments where a user goes through service 110 to
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`IPR2019-01171
`Patent 9,978,107 B2
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`communicate and where a user goes outside of service 110 to
`communicate with participants. The problem with that citation is
`that it's without context. When that citation is read in context, it
`seemed that the 107 patent is describing how different
`components work with respect to figure 1 and in this particular
`instance, it's clear that service 110 forwards inquiry message 108
`to multiple participants. In this embodiment biography
`information associated with each participant is returned to the
`user.
`
`Now, the patent goes on to describe a scenario where, for
`example, if the user needs to relocate to Chicago but needs a
`medical specialist depending on that biography information there
`may be some conflicts, right? For some reasons he may want one
`medical specialist but they're in the wrong city or the medical
`specialist might be in the correct city, which in this case is
`Chicago, but not have the specialist. So here the inquiry
`message has been sent, 108 has already been sent by 110. The
`category has already been selected. All of those steps have been
`performed and when the citation speaks about how the user
`chooses to communicate it's not talking about the inquiry
`message itself, it's talking about subsequent communications. So
`it's very important, I think, to appreciate what's really going on
`in these citations.
`So, again, I can say with confidence that when we discuss
`inquiry messages in each of the embodiments, it is service 110
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`IPR2019-01171
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`that's used to route or forward inquiry message 108 and, in fact,
`the very next sentence at that citation that the Patent Owner
`provides column 5, lines 47 through 50 states,
`"Further, according to figure 1 it de scribes a process where
`service 110 makes a selection of who is to receive the user's
`inquiry."
`So again, in context, it certainly demonstrates that in every
`instance in the 107 patent service 110 is used to forward or route
`inquiry message 108. Now, how would that impact claim
`construction? I could find a body of case law, it's not in our
`briefing, that says that a construction that is at odds with every
`disclosed embodiment would be strained, to say the least. So --
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right. You're --
`MR. GREESON: -- I don't know (indiscernible.)
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: -- into your rebuttal time but I think
`we understand the principles of claim construction in that a
`claim construction that excludes a preferred embodiment is
`rarely, if ever, correct. I think we get that.
`MR. GREESON: Sure, and I'll touch upon -- I know I'm
`cutting into rebuttal -- one last point. In its sur-reply, Netsoc
`makes the statement at page 15 that Walker does not disclose a
`direct communication and this goes to the point that look,
`irrespective of the construction, Collins in view of Walker
`disclose the claim limitation.
`So the Board earlier noted in its decision that Walker
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`describes several embodiments and at page 29 it refers to
`Walker's embodiments at column 24 through column 29, and
`that's important here because it directly -- the embodiments
`described at that citation directly refute the notion that Walker
`does not disclose direct communication and I'll give you a few
`examples. Walker describes the notion of synchronous
`communications where, for example, a request for real time
`communications is sent from an end user to experts. It goes on
`to list examples and I'll go straight to the most prominent
`example but there's several. At column 26, approximately lines
`59 through 67 it provides an example of the synchronous
`communications and it says,
`"A continuous communication channel between the expert
`and end user uses message window 170. Message window 170 is
`a text-based computer window displayed on video monitor 530 of
`end user 500 and on video monitor 430 of expert interface 400."
`And here's the important part.
`"The end user sends request 120 directly to message
`window 170 which appears on the expert's video monitor 530.
`Simultaneously, the expert sees end user request 120 on his
`video monitor."
`So I'll leave my opening at that unless the Board has further
`questions or comments.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: I have no further questions.
`JUDGE MCSHANE: No, thank you.
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`JUDGE AMUNDSON: So I think for your rebuttal it
`should be about 13 minutes.
`MR. GREESON: Thank you.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Mr. Ramey, are you ready to
`proceed and would you like to reserve any sur-rebuttal time?
`Mr. Ramey, can you hear me? Can anybody hear me?
`MR. GREESON: Petitioners can hear you.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right.
`MR. RAMEY: Can you hear me now?
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: Yes, that's good, yes.
`MR. RAMEY: Okay. I'm sorry. It wasn't on my side but I
`know what happened, but it wasn't on my side. Sorry. Judge
`Amundson, if I may reserve 15 minutes of time.
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: All right, that's fine. So start when
`you're ready.
`MR. RAMEY: Thank you, Your Honor, and sorry for that.
`These video conferences are always fun, aren't they? But good
`morning, Judge Amundson. There's still 30 minutes left in the
`morning, Judge Deshpande and Judge McShane. Again, my name
`is Bill Ramey and I represent Patent Owner of U.S. 9,978,107,
`the 107 patent, but I'm not going to repeat my introduction from
`earlier today. I thought after listening to some of the description
`going on with Petitioner, maybe the story of the invention is
`what needs to be told to put in context the only sworn testimony,
`corroborated testimony that we have on the date of conception of
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`the invention of the claims of the 107 patent.
`Ms. White, as Petitioner pointed out, was a pro se inventor
`at the time she filed this provisional application. She wasn't pro
`se by the time she got involved in this IPR so I don't know where
`the deposition issues came from. But she was pro se back then.
`Petitioner made the point to mention that there were certain
`figures that may have been dated two and a half years over a
`period of time until August 14 of 2003, the date of invention.
`Yes, and we were not running from that. Emily White spent two
`and a half years developing a robust, never seen before, social
`network to help people with life issues and she started that many
`moons ago, added embodiments, made it more robust. Got to the
`point that on August 11, 2003 she thought she had a complete
`invention. She wrote it up. She printed out a cover sheet for a
`provisional. She signed that document on August 11, 2003
`(indiscernible.)
`JUDGE AMUNDSON: I had a question here, if
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