Court Opinion

ID: 9393084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-09 14:01:02.73599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:50.748972
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1291   Document: 58    Page: 1   Filed: 05/09/2023

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                     BOT M8 LLC,
                       Appellant

                           v.

    SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC,
                   Appellee

  KATHERINE K. VIDAL, UNDER SECRETARY OF
  COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
    AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES
      PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE,
                  Intervenor
            ______________________

                       2022-1291
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
 Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2020-
 00922.
                  ______________________

                  Decided: May 9, 2023
                 ______________________

     AARON M. FRANKEL, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
 LLP, New York, NY, argued for appellant. Also repre-
 sented by JEFFREY ENG; PAUL J. ANDRE, JAMES R. HANNAH,
 LISA KOBIALKA, Redwood Shores, CA.

    ABRAN J. KEAN, Erise IP, P.A., Greenwood Village, CO,
Case: 22-1291     Document: 58      Page: 2    Filed: 05/09/2023

 2        BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC

 argued for appellee. Also represented by ERIC ALLAN
 BURESH, Overland Park, KS.

    WILLIAM LAMARCA, Office of the Solicitor, United
 States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, ar-
 gued for intervenor. Also represented by MICHAEL S.
 FORMAN, THOMAS W. KRAUSE, FARHEENA YASMEEN
 RASHEED, MEREDITH HOPE SCHOENFELD.
                 ______________________

  Before PROST, REYNA, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.
 PROST, Circuit Judge.
     Bot M8 LLC (“Bot M8”) appeals from a final written
 decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) in
 an inter partes review (“IPR”) determining all challenged
 claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,078,540 (“the ’540 patent”) un-
 patentable. We affirm.
                         BACKGROUND
     Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (“Sony”) peti-
 tioned for IPR of claims 1–6 of the ’540 patent. The ’540 pa-
 tent concerns a gaming machine that authenticates certain
 data and that has both a motherboard and a different
 board. See, e.g., ’540 patent col. 5 ll. 25–39; id. at claim 1.
 Two aspects of the claims are relevant here. First, the in-
 dependent claims (claims 1 and 4) require that the “game
 program” be written to the motherboard only after the
 game program has been authenticated. Second, the de-
 pendent claims (claims 2, 3, 5, and 6) require two different
 CPUs—one on the motherboard, one on a different board—
 for executing the “authentication program” and “prelimi-
 nary authentication program” respectively.
     Claims 1 and 2 exemplify the issues on appeal concern-
 ing the independent claims and dependent claims, reciting:
     1. A gaming machine, comprising:
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 BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC        3

    (i) a board including a memory in which a game
    program for executing a game and an authentica-
    tion program for authenticating the game program
    are stored;
    (ii) a motherboard which is different from the board
    and connects to the board, the motherboard includ-
    ing another memory which is different from the
    memory, said another memory configured to read
    out and store the game program stored in the
    memory; and
    (iii) a CPU which is provided on the motherboard,
    for executing the game based upon the game pro-
    gram stored in said another memory,
    the CPU being configured to:
        (a) read out the authentication program
        from the memory of the board, and then,
        store the read out authentication program
        in said another memory of the mother-
        board;
        (b) execute the authentication program
        stored in said another memory in the pro-
        cess (a), and then, authenticate the game
        program in the memory of the board, based
        upon the executed authentication program;
        (c) write the game program in the memory
        of the board, to said another memory of the
        motherboard, in a case where the game pro-
        gram in the memory of the board is authen-
        ticated as a result of the authentication
        process (b); and
        (d) execute the game based upon the game
        program written to said another memory of
        the motherboard in the process (c).
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     2. The gaming machine according to claim 1,
     wherein:
         a preliminary authentication program for
         authenticating the authentication program
         is further stored in the memory of the board
         and another CPU which is different from
         the CPU, said another CPU configured to
         execute the preliminary authentication pro-
         gram, is provided on the board, said an-
         other CPU being configured to, prior to
         performing the process (a):
            (e) execute the preliminary authen-
            tication program stored in the
            memory of the board, and then, au-
            thenticate the authentication pro-
            gram stored in the memory of the
            board, based upon the preliminary
            authentication program.
 ’540 patent claims 1 & 2 (emphasis added).
     In its final written decision, the Board determined that
 the independent claims are unpatentable based on as-
 serted combinations of (1) Johnson and Martinek and
 (2) Morrow ’952, Morrow ’771, and Diamant. 1 Sony Inter-
 active Ent. LLC v. Bot M8, LLC, No. IPR2020-00922, Pa-
 per 26, 2021 WL 6335602, at *29 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 22, 2021)
 (“Final Written Decision”); cf. id. at *20, *25 (determining
 that the independent claims are unpatentable based on
 each of Johnson and Morrow ’952 alone). It determined
 that the dependent claims are unpatentable based on the

     1  U.S. Patent No. 6,565,443 (“Johnson”); U.S. Patent
 App. Pub. No. 2003/0130032 (“Martinek”); U.S. Patent
 App. Pub. No. 2004/0054952 (“Morrow ’952”); U.S. Patent
 App. Pub. No. 2003/0064771 (“Morrow ’771”); U.S. Patent
 App. Pub. No. 2006/0101310 (“Diamant”).
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 asserted combination of Johnson, Martinek, and Diamant.
 Id. at *29.
    Bot M8 timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).
                         DISCUSSION
     We review the Board’s decision in accordance with the
 Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 706.
 E.g., Hunting Titan, Inc. v. DynaEnergetics Eur. GmbH,
 28 F.4th 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2022). We review claim con-
 struction de novo and any subsidiary factfindings based on
 extrinsic evidence for substantial evidence. E.g., Apple Inc.
 v. MPH Techs. Oy, 28 F.4th 254, 259 (Fed. Cir. 2022). Sub-
 stantial evidence “is such relevant evidence as a reasonable
 mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.”
 Novartis AG v. Torrent Pharms. Ltd., 853 F.3d 1316,
 1323–24 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (cleaned up). What the prior art
 discloses and whether a person of ordinary skill in the art
 would have been motivated to combine prior-art references
 are both fact questions that we review for substantial evi-
 dence. E.g., Intel Corp. v. PACT XPP Schweiz AG, 61 F.4th
 1373, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2023).
     Bot M8 raises two issues on appeal. 2 First, it argues
 that the Board misconstrued the independent claims. Sec-
 ond, it argues that the Board erred in determining the de-
 pendent claims unpatentable for obviousness. We address
 each issue in turn.
                               I
    As to the independent claims, Bot M8 argues that the
 Board misconstrued claim 1 to find that both Johnson and

     2   Bot M8 originally raised a third issue—a challenge
 to the Board’s institution decision as allegedly violating the
 Constitution’s Appointments Clause—but it withdrew that
 challenge before oral argument. ECF No. 54.
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 6        BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC

 Morrow ’952 disclose the element that requires writing the
 game program to the motherboard only after authenticat-
 ing the game program. 3 The dispute concerns what data
 may be written to the motherboard before authenticating
 the game program.
     Claim 1 undisputedly precludes writing the entire
 game program to the motherboard before authenticating
 the game program. See Final Written Decision, 2021 WL
 6335602, at *19 (describing this as “a point not in dispute”);
 accord Appellant’s Br. 24; Appellee’s Br. 17.
     Bot M8 maintains that claim 1 further precludes writ-
 ing any data—game program or not—to the motherboard
 before authenticating the game program. See Appellant’s
 Br. 34. The Board rejected such an interpretation as incon-
 sistent with the claim language. See, e.g., Final Written
 Decision, 2021 WL 6335602, at *18. We likewise reject
 such an interpretation. Although claim 1 precludes writing
 the game program to the motherboard before it’s authenti-
 cated, Bot M8 offers no persuasive reason to construe the
 claim to preclude writing other data to the motherboard
 before the game program is authenticated.
     Bot M8 also argues, more modestly, that claim 1 at
 least precludes writing any portion of the game program to
 the motherboard before authenticating the game program.
 Appellant’s Br. 23. And, in attempting to show that the
 Board applied a contrary construction—one that permits
 portions of the game program to be written to the mother-
 board before authenticating the game program—Bot M8

     3   Although Sony argues that Bot M8 forfeited its
 claim-construction arguments on this element by not pre-
 serving them before the Board, Appellee’s Br. 12–17, we
 need not reach that argument because, as explained below,
 we reject Bot M8’s claim-construction arguments on the
 merits.
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 fixates on what appears to be a single sentence in the
 Board’s final written decision, where the Board stated:
 “[Bot M8] seeks to read into claim 1 a requirement that
 nothing related to, or any portion of, the gaming infor-
 mation be read into [the motherboard’s] RAM from the
 mass storage device of Johnson prior to authenticating the
 game program.” 4       Final Written Decision, 2021 WL
 6335602, at *17 (second emphasis added); see, e.g., Appel-
 lant’s Br. 17, 25 (quoting this sentence).
      Assuming (for argument’s sake) that Bot M8 is cor-
 rect—that claim 1 does preclude writing any portion of the
 game program to the motherboard before authenticating
 the game program—we still affirm. Our review under the
 APA is subject to a harmless-error rule, see, e.g., 5 U.S.C.
 § 706 (“[D]ue account shall be taken of the rule of prejudi-
 cial error.”), and the party challenging the Board’s decision
 must demonstrate the harmfulness of the alleged error, see
 Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 406, 409–10 (2009); ac-
 cord Vicor Corp. v. SynQor, Inc., 869 F.3d 1309, 1325
 (Fed. Cir. 2017). Bot M8 fails to do so here.

     4    We will assume (for argument’s sake) that when
 the Board said “gaming information” here, it was contem-
 plating “game program.” But even that is far from clear.
 The ’540 patent distinguishes between “gaming infor-
 mation” and “game program,” with “gaming information”
 including both a “game program” and a “game system pro-
 gram.” See ’540 patent col. 5 ll. 34–39; id. at col. 6 ll. 53–55;
 id. at col. 12 ll. 51–53. So, when suggesting that a portion
 of the “gaming information” may be written to the mother-
 board before authenticating the game program, the Board
 was not necessarily even referring to a portion of the game
 program specifically. Nevertheless, for argument’s sake,
 we will assume that the Board’s use of “gaming infor-
 mation” in this context contemplated “game program.”
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 8        BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC

      Specifically, Bot M8 fails to demonstrate that the
 Board, in making its unpatentability determinations, actu-
 ally relied—or even might have relied—on a construction
 that permits writing portions of the game program to the
 motherboard before authenticating the game program. By
 all indications, the Board simply didn’t need to; it found
 that both Johnson and Morrow ’952 disclose writing only
 non-game-program data to the motherboard before authen-
 ticating the game program. See, e.g., Final Written Deci-
 sion, 2021 WL 6335602, at *16 (“[Sony] also shows that
 Johnson expressly teaches loading only enough of the oper-
 ating system that is needed to access the files stored on the
 mass storage device 211 and perform the verification oper-
 ations, which would have been understood not to include
 game programs.” (emphasis added) (cleaned up)); id. (quot-
 ing favorably Sony’s expert’s testimony that, in one John-
 son embodiment, “the application module files (i.e., game
 program) are also not loaded or written into [the mother-
 board’s] RAM until the verification procedure successfully
 completes” (quoting J.A. 856–57 ¶ 183)); id. at *27 (discuss-
 ing Morrow ’952). We review these factfindings for sub-
 stantial evidence, and Bot M8 has not shown that they
 were lacking in that regard. Given these findings, then,
 there would have been no occasion for the Board to apply a
 construction that permits writing portions of the game pro-
 gram to the motherboard before authenticating the game
 program. We therefore conclude that any error in the
 Board’s suggestion that claim 1 permits as much was
 harmless. 5

     5   Although the foregoing discussion suffices, we fur-
 ther note that Bot M8’s own explanation of Johnson and
 Morrow ’952 bolsters this conclusion. For example, when
 explaining why it believes that these references don’t dis-
 close the relevant claim element, Bot M8 tends to say only
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 BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC        9

     Bot M8’s challenge concerning the independent claims
 depends on its arguments of claim-construction error. Be-
 cause we conclude that the Board did not err in this respect
 or that any error was harmless, we affirm as to the inde-
 pendent claims.
                              II
    As to the dependent claims, Bot M8 argues that the
 Board erred in determining them unpatentable for obvious-
 ness because a person of ordinary skill in the art would not
 have been motivated to combine Johnson, Martinek, and
 Diamant to yield the invention of claim 2.
     Again, as relevant here, claim 2 requires two different
 CPUs—one on the motherboard, one on a different board—
 for executing the “authentication program” and “prelimi-
 nary authentication program” respectively.
     The Board found that Martinek discloses a board (dif-
 ferent from the motherboard) with a CPU (different from
 the motherboard’s CPU) that can execute an authentica-
 tion program. See Final Written Decision, 2021 WL

 that they write “data” to the motherboard before authenti-
 cating the game program—without clearly specifying what
 “data” it’s talking about. See Appellant’s Br. 31–34. And,
 when articulating why it believes the Board incorrectly
 found that these references disclose the relevant claim ele-
 ment, Bot M8 identifies as “erroneous” the Board’s inter-
 pretation that claim 1 does not preclude any and all data
 from being written to the motherboard before the game
 program is authenticated. See Appellant’s Br. 34 (regard-
 ing Morrow ’952); id. at 32 (regarding Johnson). This
 simply reinforces that Bot M8’s real issue with the Board’s
 interpretation is that it allowed for some data—even non-
 game-program data—to be written to the motherboard be-
 fore the game program is authenticated. As already dis-
 cussed, Bot M8 has not shown error in that interpretation.
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 10       BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC

 6335602, at *21–22. The Board also found that Diamant
 discloses a preliminary authentication program. See id.
 And although the Board acknowledged Bot M8’s argument
 that, in Diamant, the analogous “authentication program”
 and “preliminary authentication program” are both exe-
 cuted on the same CPU, id. at *22, *24, the Board credited
 (among other things) Sony’s “persuasive reasons why a per-
 son of ordinary skill in the art would have understood a
 benefit of combining [the references’] teachings to arrive at
 a process that uses two CPUs,” id. at *24. In particular,
 the Board quoted favorably the testimony of Sony’s expert,
 who explained that “using processor 505 of Martinek to
 first authenticate Johnson’s verification module before
 loading it into [the motherboard’s] RAM accomplishes the
 goal expressly described in Martinek of acting as a gate to
 ‘allow data to enter a host computer only after validation.’”
 Id. at *23 (quoting J.A. 872 ¶ 212 (quoting J.A. 983
 at [0114] (Martinek))). That is, the Board credited Sony’s
 expert’s explanation of why Martinek itself supplies a mo-
 tivation. Id.; see also id. at *24 (finding “for the reasons
 explained above that the express disclosures in the as-
 serted references provide reasons and motivations that
 support the asserted combination”).
      On appeal, Bot M8 again stresses that “no reference of
 record[] shows using two different CPUs for two separate
 authentication processes.” Appellant’s Br. 36. But Bot M8
 fails to persuade us why no reasonable factfinder could
 have found as the Board did—that given Sony’s expert’s ex-
 planation and the references themselves, it nonetheless
 would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the
 art to combine the references to yield the claimed inven-
 tion. We conclude that substantial evidence supports the
 factfindings underpinning the Board’s obviousness deter-
 mination, and we otherwise see no error in that determina-
 tion.
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 BOT M8 LLC   v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC      11

                         CONCLUSION
      We have considered Bot M8’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
 affirm.
                         AFFIRMED