and we will hear argument next and then a number fifteen one six zero eight computer software protection against let's go the system mr countryman whenever you're ready ask you this and i'm going to put aside the idea of the per se rule which i will tell you i just don't find it in the district court's opinion suppose for a minute that i thought when i read that crucial provision of the oracle license which i guess we can actually talk about here is the one about the function structure operation or just some phrase like that that there was actually some room for uncertainty about whether that language covered a accused infringer who was using an oracle database but could just as easily have used any other off the shelf database nothing about the asserted inventive features of the claim involved stuff going on that is the way that the oracle database was structured it was put stuff in get stuff out when you explain to us the and as you know the robinson referred to the obvious policy she now is going to be asked to spend her time on a case that she didn't learn of very much about because it resolved itself early when there's other work to be done that's a real cost to the judicial system so how do we think about that right so if this court thought that since he's position is reasonable on the structure function or at least not an exception at least on the summit over the difference i think this court could make that determination in the first instance and not have to send it back to jack robinson however do the work  but in this case we think that serious piece position doesn't have any merit because for two reasons first the claims themselves require the staff of generating the weissenstein number using th admit to not having found the words to capture a kind of intuition of a possible version of a reading of that limitation but one analogy i guess that has come to my mind it probably has come to your mind too is the zero one alice analogy when a computer is called for in the claim in a way that is off the shelf standard functions of computers whether calculations or put stuff in memory get stuff out of memory under one o one if in some sense in some circumstances that just doesn't count to change what would otherwise be an ineligible subject matter into one that that is eligible why is it unreasonable again to use that word to think that the oracle license was drawing a line something like that if you're using inventive aspects of our database you're licensed but if you're just using our database the way you could use a microsoft database or any other that's not what we're granting you a license to do i think the license of the oracle language shows you that it's it's not to be interpreted that way because it draws a line between situations in which you're just merely interacting with an oracle product and situations where you're so by specifically pointing to the fact that the databases story that information a c s p's infringement allegation necessarily implicates the function and operation of oracle's product and you know there's just nothing in the the language of  license that would make it a colorable argument to say to distinguish between some functions which are more elementary and might not count in an alice analysis and other functions that are more specific to oracle software warranted and the pleasure to be looking for that is for the district court to go through and analyze the various arguments with respect to the the political for visions of the licensor going to one point eight one point nine two point five and so forth alternative i think i think our preference would be for this court just something about the contract and send it back because we feel you know there's really three issues about the contract here we think c s p's position with respect to all of them is baseless and you know if that if this court were to just send it back without any instruction and the district court order render a decision denying fees it might lead to a second appeal and so given that the case is here now that it's a pure legal issue we think it makes sense for the panel right now just say something about the interpretation of those contractual provisions so i guess you're saying you're looking for a statement of law from this core that it's an abuse of discretion for a so we think that there would have to be there's at least another sentence or two explaining and say you know in particular we think the license or i think the license issue is close because of you know c s keys argument that x but i think we've never required that before had said that if we concluded that on the merits there are there are license position let's say john structure function operation was a reasonable position that at is appropriate because you know this the district court could address those issues in the first instance and should do so if you know in some kind of of reasoned way i would say that in addition to to to force a judge to learn a case that is over where there has been no material learning precisely because the judge hasn't been involved is obviously costly in the particular greenstein good morning your honor is in the i'm pleased the court judge in fact the federal circuit this court has already reached and decided the question of how much detail must go into feet denial order and that was from the we more discretion in the trial court for the ultimate outcomes but but we haven't had any change in the federal circuit statement if you will procedural law that and i'll just read from the decision the court has not imposed a blanket requirement that a district court provide its reasoning and attorneys speak ace's then there's a later sentence in that same opinion and incidentally your honor judge show here you were one of the panel members for which here when we know which i just yet but can you respond the other side who suggests that there should be some kind of quid pro quo now that there is a much more relaxed and her view in the district courts are empowered with much more discretion because of all that you know comes great responsibility and so therefore the only part of the really showing their work and their reasoning in why they are denying fees i wish i could answer with another post from from uncle ben and stanley but i will simply set it in under tail there already was an abuse of discretion standard that was already in existence for for the overall determination of the award of attorney's fees so in that sense it's a continuing nothing has changed in that there are some tweaks  and and that said later in the way still decision it's the grant of a few motion that calls for some extra reasoning and let me let me not discount what judge robinson said and what she did recall of course she's been on the bench for a quarter century she's seen a lot of patent cases she's seen the good the bad and the ugly and what she did is she actually spent five pages explaining her point of view after explaining how within the five pages she explained the rule of law she was applying and we know from the couter decision that when the judge it's states the rule of law correctly and give substantial justification for the ultimate conclusion then then there's there's a firm it's no use discretion can you can you just remind me is is part of the discussion in the district court's opinion a discussion of the license defen briefs i know i see it and i don't see it here she didn't actually walk through one point eight one point nine two point five by that's correct but of course that was not for her and when there's around that appears in the record that would support the ultimate determination on attorneys fees there should be a firm and that's also in the wedge tail case and that's that's also in many other cases there's a long long tradition of that  several circuit jurisprudence reviewing trial courts and of course i'd like to go to the actual merits of license defense the what we hear from mr countryman in discussing the merits is that one of our primary arguments in the district court was the very first argument that we we responded to them when they first raised this defense in the middle of the case the very first response was wait a second this is a method claim see cardiac pacemakers and if your honor for cardiac pacemakers was an unbiased decision of this court and it was not about decision on method claims particularly in the ultimate holding was that a limitation to a physical structure within a patent claim does not make the structure a complement the quote unquote complement of a method claim so what that means is we have a head start and rebutting in responding and then shooting down the license defense because this court has already said that the physical structure named in a method claim step is not a so called complement of a method now let's come back to the issue of first impression that would otherwise have been in front of the district court which is the interpretation and application of this license agreement the exact words that we did not hear again and mr countryman's argument which were in section three point five are the words based  on what we heard him say is quote i think i'm quoting correctly when you're accusing the structure and function in operation center etc in fact the language of the agreement is very precise and says to the effect of when you on the structure function or operation of the oracle so this was a difficult exit jesus exercise certainly we think we have the better of the merits we've never accused adobe of raising a frivolous license so where does that work that leave us back to the legal discussion that we were having particularly with judge chan about wedge tailed don't we have some cases that do say well there's no blanket requirement that a district court in denying fees explain why sometimes we have said there isn't enough here that we will remain and for an explanation where there's just no explanation and dealing with something that seems to us pretty serious a pretty serious basis for a claim for fees obviously everything almost everything is conservation that in the nine feet there had been a sting but i don't think that there is any watering down of the wedge tail statement that we don't have to have but even the statement by by which tale has about no blanket requirement that doesn't right doesn't mean we will never do this we can't ever do this sometimes explanation is necessary for us to figure out because we do not see a reason which feels could have been denied so you have to tell us if there is i agree with your own or you actually penned pendent right right in the bull's eye it's when the record doesn't reveal an irrational basis for not reporting fees that there should be nothing of a reason some other district judge might think it's enough of a reason if we apply the standard that said we see a reason that a district court could have relied on to deny fees aren't we essentially exercising a discretion that doesn't belong to us no your honor you're testing the boundaries of discretion that work was available to the district court is still preserves the hypothetical scenario you your honor mentioned where maybe there is one district judge who would award fees under these facts but another district judge would deny fees on these facts if there's a sound basis you can connect the dots and lead to either forget one point which is the get out of this and what do you make of the the policy point that the district court made here which obviously has some real force but it has a there's a nother side to it the side about the potentially systemically costly operation of bringing lawsuits that get settled before the district judge has had to get involved and therefore any fear request would impose on the district judge work that would be substantially greater than if the district judge already knew i had some real familiarity with with the case if i understand the question but if i can rephrase it your honor what do i make of the policy of not forcing a district court having to scrutinize it to learn more about the case then the work on the merits of the case the pre dismissal parts stage of the case had required the judge to did it it's clearly a cost that we've so i think sometimes use the phrase or at least some course of use the phrase who having a they burdens a mini trial on the fee request but there's a set of cases in which precisely because the district court has not had to become familiar with the case he goes away before that happens those costs are greater on the other hand that seems like a a window for exploitation there's nothing nothing new in under the sun about one policy having competing outcomes from another policy and i think we acknowledge that in our briefing there's the deterrence policy which is in tension with the policy in favor of resolution of disputes in the in cited by by adobe there is a statement that once a court determines that that a case is exceptional then discretion triggers to decide whether to abort a fetus so even the supreme court doesn't doesn't believe that the policy in favor of deterrence should overshadow an eclipse all other policies and here there was a voluntary dismissal and so my final observation would be we haven't found and we haven't seen from a litigation misconduct and then even more strongly for our case there's not a single case on the record that we could find or that's been shown to us where this court has reversed the district court's denial of fees in the wake of the voluntary forty two u s c nine hundred eighty eight that it just reported most quote provide a concise but clear explanation of its reasons and in addition to the can you remind me was that was not about and so their friend allegations based on an accusation against the structures third with respect for the dismissal being for economic reasons i just know that the act proffered economic reason was a license that was given over five months before they dropped the suit against us in those intervening five months fear to take expert depositions greenough time construction brief summary judgment so the timing doesn't line up for them on the economics and finally if i could just make a closing point this is an important