sept fourth page twenty two of amdocs opening brief invision plane is in the running for patton like the other paths that bring us here provided novel solution to problems arising in packet based networks by taking various network came before traditional telephony networks the internet is a packet based network so instead of setting up a single circuit to for example make a telephone call from from new york city to buffalo or wherever you instead s packets through a network that is that has various devices distributed throughout the day so that is a first difference the packets don't travel in a single circuit there are multiple up a line between the two geographic information where the conversation is going to take place that circuit stays open until the conversation is completed and so whatever information or whatever conversation that you in the recipient have is all over that circuit as for me to you and from you to me over that sir and so when it comes time to make a record of that conversation for billing or for whatever purposes it's simple and in the past explain why because you've got that that single circuit that opens you know when it when it opened you know to close to you know the address these two in the from because it says that it telephone number and therefore it's easy bye bye essentially listening in essentially on that conversation of single location to get the information that you need to generate useful billing records in a pack of a system on the other hand you don't set up that circuit but instead every single time you send receive information you receive packets across the internet it could and it can take one route one time the next time we speak the packets make a difference it all depends on the internet and and the intermediate devices and how it gets routed and so unlike the telephony network you don't have that circuit single place where you can find a switch and say ok we can we can analyze that conversation what's the problem what's the  saw here well the product of the problem is the problem that's posed by the internet when you have when you're sending packets over this despair non central system hard it's hard to track who's doing what on the system it's hard to track system meaning there's a physical layer there's what's called a mac layer there's higher layers different for different components on the system speak to each other using different languages and different protocols a lot of these different layers so in that present a unique think not so much that you hadn't come up with something that was new in his hagrid in complex and fills a need but that your kinds were so general into broad that there wasn't anything other than a generalized statement of the solution or of the problem right what we submitted that the district court did not accurately recognize in her second opinion the inventive contribution of these brought us here in that same construction the district court found that be the collection of network usage data and not only got the processing of the data to enhance it or generate a complete record must take place close to the source of the collection  what she called with this report called a distributed architecture not only did the court find this and this was a firm by the federal circuit but the district court found this was a key feature of these claims that differentiated the claims from to say you are an abstract idea now help me understand what you think and i did well i think i think you have to look to see what the claims are correct and know what is an idea an the same questions who don't feel uncomfortable what do you understand is the definition of abstract for purposes of understanding what an abstract idea is well  applying the alice rules isn't it i think that is right i think that is right so how do you understand the meaning of abstract well abstract is something to do not exist in the concrete world abstract is something that exists at a level that is not physical i believe and so when you have an abstract idea not only is it in your head but it is an idea that really is purposefully in your head it is not something that you can you can locate in the physical i believe that is what what alex is trying to get at when they talk about the fundamental building blocks or they talk about preexisting business practices those are the types of things that would be considered abstract so i take it your argument is that in claymore one which was the fact of if you look at  as it can be i mean a firewall is a combination of hardware and software that performs the function of being a firewall of authentication servers these are physical devices that exist on the internet routers and the low server databases mail services radius servers the main name servers or any of those physical all of those all of those are physical devices that are geographically dispersed in the internet the use of physical devices goes to step t piece of software and say that's abstract i don't believe use it is it's what we should be looking for to determine whether whether at the end of the line there we can see this is the idea this this software or this pen is directed towards something that somebody thought about a long time ago well i think drawing wide it difficult it's been a difficult hardware and the switches and all of that if you also have a physical implementation of data within those physical item what about an abstract idea isn't everything as a direct i submit that it's not i mean i think under our laws looking at software it is important to look at both steps of the test and i believe our case is is the right case to find that no under both the first step and certainly under the second step this software claims are not abstract in the case of the ninety eight for this is because you have physical devices that you have to park your software near you didn't have the patents name those devices the patents then say you need to collect that data from those devices and process in a very particular way close to the source of those devices this was a construction that this court affirmed in the last appeal the processing must be geographically distributed close to the source so we have left our minds we have left the realm of just general concepts or ideas and now we're talking about something that really this in the real world and you graphically distributed architecture there's some i imagine you're here because i have an idea in my mind there is some fellows there with me right to an abstract idea well it's a great question the transition from an idea to an abstract ideas i think a very question i could have an idea of you in my mind it's not an abstract idea though i would say because you would sense we have to make it we have to trust that the physical world exists and so if i have a punch cept for a car for example that's an idea but it's not an abstract idea if i have a concept for a distributed architecture to to utilize devices on the internet in unconventional ways and to make make data records from that that can then be pulled to a central location stored in a database generate reports etc these have left the realm of the abstract but we're now physically locating our place in our patterns in the real world and so we submit that under the first step of the powers analysis when you're looking at what the claims are directed towards it's not always that they're directed towards an abstract idea but sometimes like here they're directed towards something like a distributed architecture for collecting from network devices using those devices in a conventional way that's not abstract the second part of the test though we submit there is there  overlap because again the question becomes is there anything new do you have you made a new use of some old technology have made the internet run better and we've seen that again that that is the case we submitted just didn't work through providers dinerral service providers are the immediate beneficiaries but the but the public is the ultimate beneficiary if you recall in the mid ninety's the way that you got on the internet was to it was dial so you would get with a o l and you was concerned that your principal argument is to the point i would use connection is made was what was not wholly dispositive and that somehow didn't get into the claim well we submit that it is true that sometimes details claims can boil down to for example later mediated settlement of the alice court found from a fairly detailed claims but what reason that the district court the way the district contradiction to the court earlier this construction for the term completing in this case in this claim to require distributed architecture in not only that the court had said that this was a key feature that distinguish these claims from the the boil the claims down to a single feature that doesn't account for the distributed architecture we submit was an error isn't that a problem that we have in the application of section one hundred one that that d boil the claim down to the concept of a lawnmower but i would still say that's an idea but it's not an abstract not an invention for attaching one thing to another is that an abstract idea at that but the actual claim is for hammer and nail let's just putting aside the possible problem obvious  nail you would disagree with my characterization i would like this it's true that i have written an alias for the purpose of attaching one thing to another to that word that is the function that they that they perform the question i believe becomes how  this method with a lot of this limitation was new and not previously been practised and that really the entire argument it hasn't been shown otherwise so we're now just  of little or perhaps in definitions it doesn't make it out because it or what it's doing is preempting the idea of taking we're going to take data from devices that already existed amdocs the specifications that these are all generic or commercial again i wanted seemed to me that the district judge appreciated that it was concerned with the claims she was concerning the claims of the problem of these claims those were the scribes and the source of data which does not make an abstract idea less that involves basic computing steps story put together two data records storing data in a database putting together means that step simple routine conventional steps that existed before the loophole that al closed and buil trial judge what she thought of his forty years which used to be said claim one focuses on the concept of correlating to network accounting records to enhance the first record that was her description that you think that first of all the you think that's a fair description i think that's fair and you think that's pretty abstract i think that is the problem faced by network service providers yes it's one specific and that it adds a degree of specificity but not enough because you're still taking the same idea of the other two pieces of data to generate a new data record that's what's being claim that's the problem it's not addressed in new protocol not addressing a new algorithm this it taking the other two pieces of data putting the data together and now putting a new record it's a method of organizing data that is the problem with this with these claims so billing records could never be an invention dealing with  that's not right because the difference with the drug is that you're claiming you're playing a chemical compound or claiming formulation you're claiming something that's specifically tied to a structure in your example i have that to me that sounds more like aereo not tied to the to the the problems that network service providers had in compiling data good data from which to build customers because nothing in the claims tied to the problem was a claim to look at five of the computer code for receiving a first record from a first source correlating the first record with the second record using second record to enhance the first record that's all the claim that's it  made were was really to change the point at which the information is collected and then that measure physical is that a fair statement or what seems to me to be an extraordinarily complex and i g specifically drawn to a pack at the network they haven't been specifically drawn to solving a problem at all it's claimed it's taking data from a first source data from a second source correlating those records to make a new record taking data from existing ality of reports for reporting purposes submitting queries to the database utilizing the selected reports for retrieving information on the collection of the network usage information from the network devices the like would be like ultimate goal is to give a lot of steps that describe what it means to put dr data in a database would you agree that the idea of an abstract idea is abstract the bills have not been generated for dechen the money been generated just the advent of the internet and because of the internet there's no need to generate these type of bills before them but that's not what's being claimed here what's being claimed of taking two pieces of data now it may be even if even if that is a useful end of the invention that's not the claim here the problem the trouble just print them out and trouble trouble us to what is the way these patents are claimed the way they're drafted using existing devices in a specificity you certainly are removed from abstraction to maybe every problem that once you have the computer capability by setting it up in this way of collecting the data from all of the services including them together then argument was whether these steps any through and for example were in the prior art and or two then all you need is an ingenious programmer to put them together but somewhere there was a wrong take it take your example if you were to claim a method of improving a carburetor on a car and you say you improve the carburetor by making it more efficient by saying this is what we want to do this is the awkward that probably would be an abstract idea road where she stopped i don't don't agree with that she looked out in the first up you look at the claims as a whole the second step she she considered and recognised that every step here was using existing hardware existing software to perform routine conventional steps storing data in a database outputting a record from a database putting together two pieces of data just because you append a number of routine conventional steps to a claim that doesn't bring you over doesn't make the pen i got to give you credit i still like the description this happens as a system that is designed to solve an accounting and billing problem faced by network service providers was not abstract but you wisely argued it was because that's her description from the earlier cases when did you recognise i'll take the compliment that's an accurate description of what that if you're going to try to do in your own sentence is a great change in the abstract that's what she thought in her first opinion and came up before  know the problem with these claims is that they are the fundamental problem here is they speak in functional terms they speak in generic terms collecting data putting data together all the devices of source of data does not make an idea  strike the source of the data like in the cyber source case it was before this court i am going to talk about solving a packet based problem but packet based networks aren't playing you can't read limitations then from the specifications to narrow claim and even doctors a girl the problem with her declaration was that she may or may not have accurately described internet billing but that's not what's being claimed and off making arguments that go beyond the scope of what was actually claimed and just as ju categories and we believe this is one of the easy categories this is a technological problem that was presented by the internet and our patent days claimed a technological solution to that technological problem a in particularly because it is the feature that distinguishes the patented system for preexisting technology the distributed processing of networked records is a key component of the zero six five five ten and nine eight four that was  finding that the district court did not make in its second opinion time that this report found that the abstract idea there were different abstract ideas for four different patterns and each time the court didn't neglected  names those devices on the internet the radius servers proxy servers routers those are packet based network devices this is a plane that is very much grounded in this technology and it's not so difference that well it's it's a matter of where it's collected collecting in real time processing the data close to the source of the collection in this accounts with the transitory nature of any information that comes over the internet and we talked collection from these network devices in an internet pack of a system that was the decision of the district court in the first case that was affirmed by this court even if we were to agree with you you still have some hurdles to get over know we've never actually got to one of two one of three or one twelve that that is because the district court found we haven't had a trial yet but there were summary judgment motions in the district court that these claims are not invalid under one or two or one of the three of the matter of summary judgment determination the the reason is because the open that has not set forth the priorities that actually created records in a pack system such as this there are this was truly the first time that somebody had to have said let's go out to these networks devices these routers switches firewall cetera and use in an unconventional way it's like collect raw data