Court Opinion

ID: 9377976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-09 15:01:17.478837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:18.136436
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1907   Document: 28     Page: 1   Filed: 03/09/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                JAMES L. DRIESSEN,
                    Appellant

                            v.

   BEST BUY CO., INC., TARGET CORPORATION,
                WALMART, INC.,
                    Appellees
             ______________________

                       2022-1907
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
 Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2021-
 00198.
                  ______________________

                 Decided: March 9, 2023
                 ______________________

    JAMES L. DRIESSEN, Fairfax, VA, pro se.

    J. CHRISTOPHER CARRAWAY, Klarquist Sparkman, LLP,
 Portland, OR, for appellees. Also represented by SARAH
 ELISABETH JELSEMA, ANDREW M. MASON.
                 ______________________

     Before LOURIE, REYNA, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-1907     Document: 28      Page: 2      Filed: 03/09/2023

 2                                DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.

 PER CURIAM.
     James Driessen appeals a Final Written Decision by
 the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) in an inter
 partes review proceeding involving U.S. Patent
 No. 10,304,052 (’052 patent). The Board determined that
 claims 1–20 of the ’052 patent are unpatentable under 35
 U.S.C. § 103(a). Because Mr. Driessen forfeited the claim
 construction arguments he now raises on appeal and does
 not challenge the Board’s unpatentability determination
 independent of his forfeited arguments, we affirm.
                         BACKGROUND
      Mr. Driessen owns the ’052 patent, which is generally
 directed to a “retail point of sale for the Internet.” ’052 pa-
 tent col. 4 ll. 21−22. The ’052 patent describes a card sold
 as a retail item in an in-person transaction. Id. at col. 4
 ll. 59–60, col. 5 ll. 3−5. The card “provides a method of con-
 trolling web access” that allows the purchaser to access
 content or merchandise at “the website or specific web
 page(s) intended by the seller.” Id. at col. 4 ll. 62–65, col. 5
 ll. 3–15.
     Independent claims 1, 14, and 19 each include a “pre-
 selection” limitation that is the focus of this appeal. For
 example, claim 1 recites:
     1. A payment system for a preselected and item-
     ized physical Internet merchandise product or a
     preselected and itemized particular content serial-
     ized downloadable media material object product,
     comprising:
         a retail point of sale establishment; and
         a physical access CARD for sale in said re-
         tail point of sale establishment wherein or
         whereon the physical access CARD is con-
         tained URL information providing the in-
         ternee [sic] address of a prepaid Internet
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 DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.                              3

         transaction location for obtaining or access-
         ing a preselected and itemized physical In-
         ternet merchandise product or a preselected
         and itemized particular content serialized
         downloadable media material object prod-
         uct, wherein preselection and itemization of
         the preselected and itemized physical Inter-
         net merchandise product or the preselected
         and itemized particular content serialized
         downloadable media material object prod-
         uct is assessed before purchase of the physi-
         cal access CARD, wherein purchase of the
         physical access CARD provides ownership
         of the preselected and itemized physical In-
         ternet merchandise product or the prese-
         lected and itemized particular content
         serialized downloadable media material
         object product.
 ’052 patent, claim 1 (emphasis added).
     Best Buy Co., Inc., Target Corporation, and Walmart,
 Inc. (collectively, Appellees) filed a petition for inter partes
 review, alleging that claims 1−20 would have been obvious
 over NetPack, alone or in combination with Boyle. 1

     1   Boyle is a published PCT application titled “A Sys-
 tem and Method for Providing E-Commerce Access to an
 Internet Website.” PCT Publication No. WO 00/17796,
 code (54). Appellees and the Board relied on Boyle as a
 secondary reference to NetPack for dependent claim 4 but
 relied only on NetPack for all other claims. Best Buy Co. v.
 Driessen, No. IPR2021-00198, 2021 WL 8086576, at *4–17
 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 15, 2021). Mr. Driessen does not dispute
 that Boyle discloses the features of dependent claim 4 or
 that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to com-
 bine NetPack and Boyle.
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 4                              DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.

 NetPack is an excerpt from the website of a company and
 describes cards that allow “software manufacture[r]s[ or]
 some book publishers[’s] [products or services], or other In-
 ternet products or services[,] to be represented and pur-
 chased in a retail store environment and then later down
 loaded from the Internet.” See J.A. 751–58. NetPack dis-
 closes an exemplary card representing “Chat Pack,”
 J.A. 751, which is software that “offers a linear communi-
 cation language[] and file transfer ability,” J.A. 797.
     Appellees’ petition did not seek construction of any
 claim terms, J.A. 143, but Mr. Driessen’s Preliminary Pa-
 tent Owner Response argued that NetPack failed to dis-
 close the “preselection” limitation because NetPack only
 disclosed purchaser-side selection, J.A. 1185. Accordingly,
 the Board’s Institution Decision specifically instructed the
 parties to brief the meaning of “preselected.” J.A. 1670.
 Mr. Driessen’s Patent Owner Response (POR) again ar-
 gued that the “preselection” limitation should be construed
 as preselection by a seller prior to sale, rather than selec-
 tion by a purchaser at the time of sale. J.A. 2298–2300.
 Appellees’ Reply disagreed but also argued that NetPack’s
 Chat Pack card satisfied Mr. Driessen’s seller-side con-
 struction of the “preselection” limitation. J.A. 2359–64,
 2368–71. At oral argument, Mr. Driessen seemed to argue,
 for the first time, that the ’052 patent claims are directed
 to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). See, e.g., J.A. 2491.
     In its Final Written Decision, the Board determined
 that claims 1–20 were unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
 § 103(a). Best Buy Co. v. Driessen, No. IPR2021-00198,
 2021 WL 8086576, at *19 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 15, 2021). In do-
 ing so, the Board declined to “resolve whether preselection
 is limited to seller side preselection only” because the
 Board found that NetPack disclosed seller-side preselec-
 tion. Id. at *4, *7–9, *13–17.
     Mr. Driessen timely appealed, arguing that the Board
 erred by (1) not construing the claims as being directed to
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 DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.                               5

 a non-fungible token (NFT), and (2) not construing the
 “preselection” limitation. Appellant’s Br. 10–11, 34–39.
 We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).
                           DISCUSSION
     We review the ultimate question of the proper con-
 struction of a patent claim de novo, with any underlying
 fact findings reviewed for substantial evidence. Dionex
 Softron GmbH v. Agilent Techs., Inc., 56 F.4th 1353, 1358
 (Fed. Cir. 2023). However, “[t]he Board is required to con-
 strue ‘only those terms . . . that are in controversy, and only
 to the extent necessary to resolve the controversy.’”
 Realtime Data, LLC v. Iancu, 912 F.3d 1368, 1375 (Fed.
 Cir. 2019) (alteration in original) (quoting Vivid Techs.,
 Inc. v. Am. Sci. & Eng’g, Inc., 200 F.3d 795, 803 (Fed. Cir.
 1999)).
                                    A
     Mr. Driessen principally argues that the Board should
 have construed the ’052 patent claims as being “directed to
 a form of an NFT,” and therefore the Board’s unpatentabil-
 ity determination should be reversed because neither Net-
 Pack nor Boyle disclose NFTs. Appellant’s Br. 4–5, 10, 34–
 39. We disagree. The Board is not required to consider
 new, untimely arguments that a patent owner presents for
 the first time during oral argument, and we review such a
 refusal for abuse of discretion. See Dell Inc. v. Acceleron,
 LLC, 884 F.3d 1364, 1369–70 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (explaining
 that “[u]nless [the Board] cho[oses] to exercise its waiver
 authority under 37 C.F.R. § 42.5(b), the Board [i]s obli-
 gated to dismiss . . . untimely argument[s] . . . raised for
 the first time during oral argument”).
     The Patent Office’s guidelines provide that “[n]o new
 evidence or arguments may be presented at the oral argu-
 ment.” Id. at 1369 (citing Office Patent Trial Practice
 Guide, 77 Fed. Reg. 48,756, 48,768 (Aug. 14, 2012)). More-
 over, the Board’s Institution Decision warned that “any
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 6                              DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.

 arguments not raised in the [patent owner’s] response may
 be deemed waived,” J.A. 1691, and the Board expressly
 warned Mr. Driessen that his oral argument “is supposed
 to be limited to what was in [his POR] brief,” see J.A. 2496.
 Mr. Driessen admits that “the words ‘non-fungible token’
 did not appear in [his POR] . . . or Surreply” and that he
 discussed “for the first time . . . the nature of an NFT with
 the Board during oral argument.” Appellant’s Br. 35–36
 (emphasis added). Because Mr. Driessen did not timely
 raise his NFT-based claim construction argument to the
 Board, the argument was forfeited, and the Board did not
 abuse its discretion in refusing to consider this argument.
 We need not address the argument’s merits on appeal.
      Even if we were to reach the argument’s merits, we dis-
 agree with Mr. Driessen’s NFT-based construction. Mr.
 Driessen refers this court to a publication from the U.S.
 Department of Treasury explaining that “NFTs are digital
 units, or tokens, on an underlying blockchain that repre-
 sent ownership of images, videos, audio files, and other
 forms of media or ownership of physical or digital prop-
 erty.” See Study of the Facilitation of Money Laundering
 and Terror Finance Through the Trade in Works of Art,
 U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury 25 (Feb. 2022), https://
 home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Treasury_Study_WoA.
 pdf (emphasis added) (cited by Appellant’s Br. 4 n.3). The
 ’052 patent’s specification, however, is silent regarding
 blockchain technology or non-fungible tokens. The patent
 instead only mentions tokens in a disclaimer, stating that
 “[t]his invention is not an Internet cash token system used
 as an anonymous means to get money to spend on the In-
 ternet.” ’052 patent col. 3 ll. 47–49 (emphasis added). Ac-
 cordingly, construing the ’052 patent claims, which lack
 any reference to NFTs, as directed to NFTs would expand
 the scope of the claims well beyond anything described in
 the claims or specification. See Nystrom v. TREX Co., 424
 F.3d 1136, 1145 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“[I]n the absence of some-
 thing in the written description and/or prosecution history
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 DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.                               7

 to provide explicit or implicit notice to the public—i.e.,
 those of ordinary skill in the art—that the inventor in-
 tended a disputed term to cover more than the ordinary
 and customary meaning revealed by the context of the in-
 trinsic record, it is improper to read the term to encompass
 a broader definition simply because it may be found in a
 dictionary, treatise, or other extrinsic source.” (citing Phil-
 lips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2005)).
                                    B
     Mr. Driessen also argues that the Board erred by not
 construing the “preselection” limitation even though the
 parties offered competing constructions therefor. Appel-
 lant’s Br. 38. We disagree.
       The only claim construction dispute that Mr. Driessen
 raised in his POR and Surreply was whether the “preselec-
 tion” limitation should be “directed to both who preselects
 and when preselected—rather than just when selection
 takes place” such that “[e]ntity specific preselection should
 be part of the claim construction analysis.” J.A. 2298–99
 (second emphasis added); see also J.A. 2285–86 (arguing
 that NetPack’s “purchaser/end-user orchestrated selection
 . . . should not be confused with the seller side preselection
 . . . disclosed and claimed in the [’]052 patent” (underlining
 added)); J.A. 2386–87 (arguing that the ’052 patent claims
 are limited “to only internet items for sale with seller-side
 preselection” (emphasis added)). Mr. Driessen did not ar-
 gue to the Board, as he does now on appeal, that “preselec-
 tion” should also be construed based on what is
 preselected—i.e., a seller preselecting a discrete, non-fun-
 gible instance of a product. 2 See Appellant’s Br. 14–16, 38.

     2   Even if Mr. Driessen asserted during oral argu-
 ment before the Board that NetPack only disclosed prese-
 lection of a “‘[t]ype’ of product offered by a seller” rather
 than a discrete product offering, see, e.g., Appellant’s Br. 13
Case: 22-1907    Document: 28       Page: 8    Filed: 03/09/2023

 8                              DRIESSEN   v. BEST BUY CO., INC.

 Accordingly, this argument is forfeited. 3 See Conoco, Inc.
 v. Energy & Env’t Int’l, L.C., 460 F.3d 1349, 1358–59 (Fed.
 Cir. 2006) (“[A] party may not introduce new claim con-
 struction arguments on appeal or alter the scope of the
 claim construction positions it took below.” (citing Interac-
 tive Gift Express, Inc. v. Compuserve, Inc., 256 F.3d 1323,
 1346–47 (Fed. Cir. 2001)).
                        CONCLUSION
    We have considered Mr. Driessen’s remaining argu-
 ments and find them unpersuasive. Because Mr. Driessen
 does not challenge the correctness of the Board’s Final
 Written Decision independent of his forfeited arguments,
 we affirm the Board’s determination that claims 1–20 are
 unpatentable.
                        AFFIRMED
                            COSTS
 Costs to Appellees.

 n.14, that argument was untimely for being raised at oral
 argument to the Board in the first instance. See Dell, 884
 F.3d at 1369–70.
     3   The Board’s Final Written Decision relied on Mr.
 Driessen’s entity-focused construction for the “preselec-
 tion” limitation. See e.g., Best Buy, 2021 WL 8086576,
 at *8.