targeted towards mobile devices for similar types of devices what the plan does is it provides some rehab cation data in sort of a menu on the main screen and then the user clicks on summary application data and it brings up the thing i'd say is i very difficult to distinguish business from the facts of the case following on that theme if you think that any mechanism that would facilitate sophisticated using computers to see an icon that has a picture of a little phone there that that's the button you push in order to make the phone work would that be patentable that icon so if i understand hypothetical correctly you're confronted with a pat where the inventor of the use of i thought right they don't have they don't tell you how to do it in the sense that they'll give you the code and so what but they just the idea is i can see with a picture of a phone on it that's my invention because it makes it a lot easier for people who are not sophisticated and got braces of computers to do use a computer so ultimately i think that pad will probably pass muster of stuff one whether or not it doesn't step two would be a different question but at step one i think if it's solving a particular problem and identifying the art if it's as you know people don't use icons they have to read texts to figure out what the application is and we've got a new approach to solving this user interface problem namely making the right piece of today well i think it's relevant to both problems i think it's probably more relevant to the second prong when the court needs to understand what's conventional and well understood and in order to make that determination you can look at what the state of the art is today you and i think that's a i think that's a very fair point when we look at improving computer functionality you're looking at the proving of the function of computer in this case i think there's a direct line you can draw from what this court said and finished what this court said in court trading technologies were just looking at it different basic aspect of what computers do in addition to storing and processing information computers also have to take him put and give up and so these patents are presently in the computers ability to through the page spread sheet do you think that would be an abstract idea if it was directed to any means to me yeah it just feels lateralization and so i think that that probably would be an abstract idea i think that what the core wireless case focuses on is a particularized configuration of the use of one of the questions so the issue in this case seems to me to have that kind of language and claim one of the five fifty one path would you agree that directed at something a bit more general so i would definitely say this this claim is closer to the line but i think it's a mistake to discount this user settable page identified with aspect of it especially given the state of the art of the art at the time of this invention w whether buttons say a raid along the edge of the sheet would count as tabs we don't have a claim construction in this case of ten amps but what is it with your position with respect to what  these patterns sure so i think the patent makes clear that the effect of the invention is to have user interface elements that are immediately recognizable to the user and have a real world analogues are easy for you to figure out how to use  closer to d d t again and then fish in that it improves or or we solve a technological problem with respect to technology respect to the computer so th specification of the patents and all that happens in this case share comes best vacation specifications recites a great length problems with the user's ability to utilize electronic spreadsheet system and identify the feat let's say i i would agree that this is an improvement using a spreadsheet electronically but how does that improve computer functioning it in the roof i'm sorry improve how does that involve how does that improv problem that's specific to the functioning of computer technology because part of the function of computer technology is to be able to take input from the person who is using the computer and give the person the right output that they're looking for that's a basic function of computer technology in the same way that the ability of a computer to do math that's that's a problem you have is that it to basic function of computer technology it seems that basically well what we have here is a posture of this case has that been decided that the first decided on twelve c the specification specifically says that electronic spread sheet is a lot more a lot different from just putting the papers ledger pad on a computer and i think that those of evidence that i think you had in your pleadings that i would consider in another business case to be secondary considerations evidence including more than one nine hundred ninety two article from p c magazine that talks about how well i think looking at commercial claim and critical acclaim from the time of the ads very important because you can see an objective take on what the product did what it was good for the planet it was made and these sources which we cite a lot of them in our complaint or alternatively whether this court can just look at the intrinsic record and make a step to determination what's what what's the evidence that you put before and i guess in your motion to amend  easily grasped by one every spreadsheet users moreover the spreadsheet notebook interface was widely considered by the industry and users to be the most important technological innovation in the field of electronic spreadsheets since the invention of the spreadsheet itself those allegations taken as true at the judgment pleading stage saying these patterns have a value it's true not claiming the spreadsheet we were claiming the important technological innovation in the spreadsheet namely our particular use claims are directed towards a particular mechanism of user interface expose the existence of the tabs it's the ability to rename the tabs it's the ability to use those names in your formulas and this is where i think the problems of hindsight bias come into effect this user is the use of tabs which seems like a pretty specific and concrete notion why is that in what sense is that abstract well because that it's well so for example  down the edge of the page seems to me pretty specific is not how would you get more specific well is there's two things there is that there's what the idea is and there's weathers of technological innovation but they're focused on the word abstract which is the word we're supposed to be using as the coo or notion from which we proceed why is tab abstract in what world is that an abstraction right so i mean the first thing i would readily admit is that  about the fact that the specification talks about how in the prior there was significant difficulty and navigating through three dimensional spreadsheets because you had to enter in complicated commands  that part of the case out and suppose that there had never been any use of temps and that the eight hundred seventy seven patent and all the prior and subsequent use of had never happened so the very first time point it's different if there's a specific source of technological obstacle to overcome and implementing it if the idea here is to put tabs on a three d electronics pressure if there's some technological obstacle to be overcome and there's a specific technological way of making that happen that out how great these tabs are and how they make it so they have made three dimensional spreadsheet usable i mean how do you respond to that because when you're talking about oh you're just taking something that w first to get there in alice the problem wasn't that this was the second person to mitigate risk with a computer the problem is that at least mitigate risk with a computer so even if they were the first to do it ok of that it would not be a novel i mean it would be no one to t e care of but that doesn't change whether it's a directed to an abstract idea with with nothing else in terms of a specific type the logical obstacle of you overcome in that as one can tell from looking at the table cases in the two pri we have a lot of cases in this area now since since allison some before yes what do you think well and let me ask the two part question first what do you think are your strongest cases in support of the judgment in this case record wireless case very similar to the older trading technology space the point there being that you have a problem that arose uniquely in a specific technological context with the solution that was then new for that technological why isn't that just same here where you get these three dimensional spreadsheets and there's a problem and navigating through them because it's the same probably at with paper if i take a whole bunch of there are structures and they're all over the place out of how do i get from one of the the page that fire for a cascade window to get you out there that's more or one of two or three days but in terms of eligibility which is why we for all up for this motion we're giving them that this is the first time that you ever did this but that's your question  the first thing i want to say as i say i have come in here today defending the first patent that claimed a paper physical tab book and i was facing a one on one challenge i think i would be very surprised whatever the words abstract idea  non abstract idea and you should put the non abstract idea on a computer putting it on a computer way that you can access that easily no i don't think i don't think that it does i think these particular concrete innovations suns which yeah are very old like arguing a page or putting tabs together these concrete organizational mechanisms are not abstract ideas so they're not abstract if they're sitting in a neighbor no but they don't suddenly become abstract when you move them indeed into the electronic context the other thing i want to say is are you saying th t generically claiming modes of organization may well be abstract but specific modes of claiming specific modes of of organization or indexing are not that's right all of the things that we were just talking about is a individual type of some sort of abstract idea that we could say things to sit up that might be an abstract idea that doesn't make chips or do you what do you think you could get a patent on let's say the dewey decimal system the don't know how about the car but organizing information according to the alphabet so i think there was starting to tread into a different potential category of problems that may or may not be now in the realm of natural is that that's a method of organising organizing their friends that is enough to organize and you would say that that's that's also a concrete non abstract idea i think it's a concrete method of organization yes now we're getting more and more removed from  non abstract simply because she was on the computer that's to me that's the big issue step one that's right and so again i think in this week we do have a case of the say well i with computerized electronic spreadsheets by using this particular user interface yes the solution here is specific to a type of software but it is improving the technological function of that  through online in that case applications so i think that the question that that line of cases and then the cases that my colleague cited and the cases we cite in their brief that distinction that is being teased out there is whether the real claimed focus is a user interface or whether the displaying steps are merely display the result so in a number of the cases you cited like the the second of those  using the icons to at then to for a user and so i think that is that a fair characterization of the case i think that's a fair characterization of the of the claims in that case and i think the distinction between this case in that case is that here we are claiming the patents recite a very particular problem with the user interface and the solution activity invention