Nature Simulation Systems Inc. v. Autodesk, Inc. ( 2022 )

Case: 20-2257 Document: 31 Page: 1 Filed: 01/27/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
AUTODESK, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2020-2257
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California in No. 3:19-cv-03192-SK,
Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim.
______________________
Decided: January 27, 2022
______________________
MATTHEW MICHAEL WAWRZYN, Wawrzyn LLC, Chi-
cago, IL, argued for plaintiff-appellant.
BRIAN ROBERT MATSUI, Morrison & Foerster LLP,
Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also rep-
resented by SETH W. LLOYD; RUDOLPH KIM, ROMAN A.
SWOOPES, Palo Alto, CA.
______________________
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2 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
Before NEWMAN, LOURIE, and DYK, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge NEWMAN.
Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge DYK.
NEWMAN, Circuit Judge.
Nature Simulation Systems, Inc. (“NSS”) is the owner
of United States Patents No. 10,120,961 (“the ’961 patent”)
and No. 10,109,105 (“the ’105 patent”), both entitled
“Method for Immediate Boolean Operations Using Geomet-
ric Facets.” The patents relate to methods of packaging
computer-aided data for three-dimensional objects. 1
NSS brought suit for infringement against Autodesk,
Inc. in the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California. At issue are claims 1 and 8 of the
’961 patent and claim 1 of the ’105 patent. The district
court held a claim construction (Markman) hearing, and
ruled the claims invalid on the ground of claim indefinite-
ness, 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). 2 That decision is the subject of
this appeal.
We conclude that the district court erred on the legal
standard for claim indefiniteness, and that on the correct
standard the claims are not indefinite. The decision of in-
validity on this ground is reversed.
1 The ’961 patent is a continuation-in-part of the ’105
patent, and the specifications and claims do not materially
differ with respect to the issues of this appeal; thus the par-
ties and this court generally cite to the ’961 patent.
2 Nature Simulation Systems Inc. v. Autodesk, Inc.,
No. 19-CV-03192-SK, ECF. No. 61, (N.D. Cal. July 31,
2020) (“Dist. Ct. Op.”); Final Judgment, 2020 WL 5525170(N.D. Cal. Aug. 11, 2020).
Case: 20-2257 Document: 31 Page: 3 Filed: 01/27/2022
NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 3
BACKGROUND
Standards of review
Claim construction is a question of law, and receives de
novo review on appeal. Markman v. Westview Instruments,
Inc., 517 U.S. 370, 390–91 (1996); Teva Pharms. USA Inc.
v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U.S. 318, 325 (2015). Claim indefinite-
ness is a legal conclusion, in implementation of 35 U.S.C.
§ 112. See Atmel Corp. v. Info. Storage Devices, Inc., 198
F.3d 1374, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“‘A determination of claim
indefiniteness is a legal conclusion that is drawn from the
court’s performance of its duty as the construer of patent
claims.’ Indefiniteness, therefore, like claim construction,
is a question of law that we review de novo.”) (quoting Per-
sonalized Media Communications, LLC v. Int’l Trade
Comm’n, 161 F.3d 696, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1998)).
Claim indefiniteness is decided from the viewpoint of
persons skilled in the field of the invention. Personalized
Media, 161 F.3d at 705. The district court and the parties
agreed that for the technology here at issue, such persons
would have “at least a master’s degree in computer science
or a related field, or a bachelor’s degree in computer science
or a related field plus two years of relevant experience,
with experience in computer graphics, computer-aided de-
sign, solid modeling, or geometric modeling.” Dist. Ct. Op.
at 7.
United States patents are accompanied by a presump-
tion of validity, 35 U.S.C. § 282, and invalidity must be es-
tablished by clear and convincing evidence. Sonix Tech.
Co. Ltd. v. Pubs. Int’l, Ltd., 844 F.3d 1370, 1377 (Fed. Cir.
2017).
The patented inventions
The ’961 and ’105 patents are for a computer-imple-
mented method for building three-dimensional objects em-
ploying a computation method called “Boolean operation.”
The patents introduce the invention as follows:
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4 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
This invention provides an immediate Boolean op-
eration method for building three (3) dimensional
geometric models from primary geometric objects
to Computer Aided Design, Computer Graphics,
Solid Modeling systems, and Surface Modeling sys-
tems, which are widely used in product design,
manufacturing, and simulation. Mechanic indus-
try, culture and sports, everywhere there are geo-
metric shapes, may have CAD/CG applications.
’961 patent, col.1, ll.7–14. The patents are for data struc-
tures and algorithms for the claimed method, which is de-
scribed as a modification of a known Boolean operation
published in 1981 for analyzing and representing three-di-
mensional geometric shapes (“the Watson method”). The
district court states: “NSS concedes that the general idea
of performing Boolean operations in this area was well
known before the patents in dispute, as the asserted pa-
tents cite to prior art disclosing this concept.” Dist. Ct. Op.
at 2. The court summarized the prior art:
There are two methods from prior art that are cited
in the asserted patents. The Delaunay method is a
known method of triangulation (known as the “De-
launay triangulation”), and the Watson method is
a known algorithm for computing a Delaunay tri-
angulation that is described in a paper written in
1981 by D.F. Watson.
Id. (citing ’961 patent col.6 ll.64–66; ’105 patent col.6 ll.42–
44). The patents state that the “modified Watson method”
described therein provides simplicity and flexibility com-
pared with prior methods, and is easier to program and im-
plement. ’961 patent, col.1, ll.17–62. Both sides presented
technology tutorials to the district court; the NSS tutorial
was presented by inventor Shangwen Cao, and the Auto-
desk tutorial was presented by expert Dr. Daniel Aliaga.
At the Markman hearing, Autodesk requested con-
struction of eight terms in the claims, and supported this
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 5
request with the Declaration of Dr. Aliaga. NSS argued
that the challenged terms do not require construction, are
clearly set forth in the specification, and should receive
their ordinary meaning in this field of technology.
The district court based its decision on two of the chal-
lenged terms, shown in boldface in clauses [2] and [3] of
Claim 1:
1. A method that performs immediate Boolean op-
erations using geometric facets of geometric objects
implemented in a computer system and operating
with a computer, the method comprising:
[1] mapping rendering facets to extended
triangles that contain neighbors;
[2] building intersection lines starting with
and ending with searching for the first pair
of triangles that hold a start point of an in-
tersection line by detecting whether two
minimum bounding boxes overlap and per-
forming edge-triangle intersection calcula-
tions for locating an intersection point,
then searching neighboring triangles
of the last triangle pair that holds the
last intersection point to extend the in-
tersection line until the first intersection
point is identical to the last intersection
point of the intersection line ensuring that
the intersection line gets closed or until all
triangles are traversed;
[3] splitting each triangle through which
an intersection line passes using modified
Watson method, wherein the modified
Watson method includes removing dupli-
cate intersection points, identifying posi-
tions of end intersection points, and
splitting portion of each triangle including
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6 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
an upper portion, a lower portion, and a
middle portion;
[4] checking each triangle whether it is ob-
scure or visible for Boolean operations or
for surface trimming;
[5] regrouping facets in separate steps that
includes copying triangles, deleting trian-
gles, reversing the normal of each triangle
of a geometric object, and merging reserved
triangles to form one or more new extended
triangle sets; and
[6] mapping extended triangles to render-
ing facets.
’961 patent, col.9, ll.17–48 (bracketed numbers and bold-
face added).
After the Markman hearing the district court ruled
that these two claim terms are indefinite, rendering the
claims invalid. The district court did not define the two
terms; instead, the court held that a claim term is indefi-
nite, as a matter of law, if there are any “unanswered ques-
tions” about the term. The court referred to the conflict
between the opinion of Autodesk’s expert, and the patent
examiner’s resolution of indefiniteness, and stated:
[T]he question is thus: if the PTO issues a patent
after amendment to clarify an indefinite term, but
an expert later opines that a POSITA would not un-
derstand the term, how does the Court determine
whether the term is indefinite? The only way to do
so here is to look at each argument to see if Auto-
desk raises any unanswered questions. Here, Au-
todesk does.
Dist. Ct. Op. at 8. The district court recited several “unan-
swered questions,” and further stated that even if the ques-
tions are answered in the specification, the definiteness
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 7
requirement is not met if the questions are not answered
in the claims. Thus the court held the claims invalid under
35 U.S.C. § 112.
NSS states that the court applied incorrect legal stand-
ards, and that on the correct law the claims are not indefi-
nite.
DISCUSSION
Patent claims must provide reasonable certainty in de-
fining what is patented, in conformity with the require-
ments of 35 U.S.C. § 112. We start with the statute:
35 U.S.C. § 112Section 112 states the required content of the patent
document. Section 112(a) provides that the specification
must describe the invention in full, clear, concise, and exact
terms, as to enable its practice by any person skilled in the
field of the invention, and must include the best mode
known to the inventor:
§ 112. Specification
(a) In General.-- The specification shall contain a
written description of the invention, and of the
manner and process of making and using it, in such
full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any
person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or
with which it is most nearly connected, to make
and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode
contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of
carrying out the invention.
Section 112(b) requires that the specification conclude with
claims that state the subject matter that is patented:
(b) Conclusion.-- The specification shall conclude
with one or more claims particularly pointing out
and distinctly claiming the subject matter which
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8 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the in-
vention.
The claims define the patent right, and perform the “no-
tice” function of legal documents; thus precision and clarity
are necessary. See Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co.,
598 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010):
[The claims’] principal function, therefore, is to pro-
vide notice of the boundaries of the right to exclude
and to define limits; it is not to describe the inven-
tion, although their original language contributes
to the description and in certain cases satisfies it.
Claims define and circumscribe, the written de-
scription discloses and teaches.
Id. at 1347. See Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc.,
572 U.S. 898, 909 (2014) (“a patent must be precise enough
to afford clear notice of what is claimed, thereby ‘ap-
pris[ing] the public of what is still open to them.’” (quot-
ing Markman, 517 U.S. at 373)).
The claims are viewed and understood in the context of
the specification and the prosecution history, as the Court
summarized in Nautilus:
Cognizant of the competing concerns, we read
§ 112, ¶ 2 to require that a patent’s claims, viewed
in light of the specification and prosecution history,
inform those skilled in the art about the scope of
the invention with reasonable certainty. The defi-
niteness requirement, so understood, mandates
clarity, while recognizing that absolute precision is
unattainable.
572 U.S. at 910. When the meaning or scope of a patent
claim is disputed by litigants, the judicial role is to construe
the claim as a matter of law, on review of appropriate
sources of relevant information. As summarized in Phillips
v. AWH Corp., the court looks first to the intrinsic record of
the patent document, including “the words of the claims
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 9
themselves, the remainder of the specification, the prose-
cution history, and extrinsic evidence concerning relevant
scientific principles, the meaning of technical terms, and
the state of the art.” 415 F.3d 1303, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2005)
(en banc) (quoting Innova/Pure Water, Inc. v. Safari Water
Filtration Sys., Inc., 381 F.3d 1111, 1116 (Fed. Cir. 2004)).
Here, however, the district court did not construe the
claims, did not apply the protocols of intrinsic and extrinsic
evidence, and did not resolve the meaning and scope of the
challenged claims. The district court applied an incorrect
standard of “unanswered questions” and a flawed analysis
of validity.
The district court’s standard of “unanswered
questions”
The district court held the claims indefinite based on
the “unanswered questions” that were suggested by Auto-
desk’s expert. For the term “searching neighboring trian-
gles of the last triangle pair that holds the last intersection
point,” the court recited three unanswered questions:
Aliaga points to several unanswered questions
about this language: (1) whether the phrase re-
quires searching repeatedly or iteratively or merely
once; (2) what the “last triangle pair” or “last inter-
section point” is; (3) how can one “extend an inter-
section line” when in some cases it is not possible,
as Aliaga demonstrates.
Dist. Ct. Op. at 17–18 (citing Aliaga Decl. ¶ 26).
For the term “modified Watson method,” the district
court recited four unanswered questions provided by Auto-
desk’s expert:
The claim language leaves unanswered the follow-
ing questions: (1) What is a neighboring point of in-
tersection (referred to as PET in the patents)?; (2)
What is the meaning of an ‘identical’ point of
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10 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
intersection?; (3) What is the meaning of removing
a point of intersection?; (4) From what is the point
of intersection being removed? NSS does not re-
spond to these specific questions, which highlight
the ambiguity of the claim language.
Dist. Ct. Op. at 9.
In response to NSS’s argument that these questions
are answered in the specification, the court held that defi-
niteness requires that the questions are answered in “the
claim language, standing alone,” as stated in the Aliaga
Declaration:
¶ 27. [T]he claim language, standing alone,
does not specify which of those neighboring, inter-
secting triangles should be used to identify addi-
tional intersection points. Nor does the claim
specify (where there are multiple potential inter-
section points for a given pair of neighboring trian-
gles) which of the multiple potential intersection
points should be used to extend the intersection
line. Thus, the claim language is indefinite.
Aliaga Decl. ¶ 27. “Claim language, standing alone” is not
the correct standard of law, and is contrary to uniform
precedent. Patent claims are viewed and understood in
light of the specification, the prosecution history, and other
relevant evidence, as “would have allowed a skilled artisan
to know the scope of the claimed invention with reasonable
certainty.” Sonix Tech., 844 F.3d at 1376.
The district court did not apply this standard protocol
for analyzing claim definiteness, and did not construe the
claims. Instead, the court held that the questions raised
by Autodesk must be answered, and that the answers must
be in the claims. NSS states that on the correct claim con-
struction, the claims are not indefinite.
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 11
The specification
The specification describes the invention in text, draw-
ings, and flowcharts. NSS states on this appeal that even
if the theory of “unanswered questions” were accepted, any
relevant questions are answered in the specification. For
example, with respect to the intersection points that were
a focus of the criticism recited by the district court, NSS
cites the description in the specification captioned “The
First Intersection Point” and “Extending an Intersection
Line.” ’961 patent, col.5, l.41–col.6, l.24. NSS also points
to the Figure 4 flowchart for building intersection lines, to
Figures 6A and 6B for showing intersection points, and
Figures 9A–9D for examples of intersection lines.
The specification describes, and the claim recites, that
the intersection line is built from the intersection points
around the objects being compared, “searching neighboring
triangles of the last triangle pair that holds the last inter-
section point to extend the intersection line until the first
intersection point is identical to the last intersection point
of the intersection line ensuring that the last line gets
closed or until all triangles are traversed.” ’961 patent,
col.9, ll.23–33.
Figure 13 is a flowchart of “Delaunay mesh modified
Watson method that created the sequence” shown in Fig-
ure 12. Figures 12A–12H show the decomposition of a
square into triangles, the placement of intersection points
within those triangles, and the use of triangles containing
intersection points to build polygons from which new trian-
gles are generated, along with comparisons with the prior
art Watson method. Figure 13 shows that where any tri-
angle contains a valid intersection point, the claimed
method “moves the triangle to the deleted Triangle Set,
uses deleted Triangle Set to build a polygon,” and “uses the
polygon to generate triangles.”
The specification describes the Watson and Delaunay
prior art, in text and drawings to show how they are used
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12 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
and modified in the subject invention. Dr. Aliaga acknowl-
edged this prior art in his expert declaration, stating: “To
be clear, I am familiar with the Delaunay method, which is
a known method of triangulation that is mentioned in the
patents. . . . And I am also aware of the ‘Watson’ algorithm
for computing a Delaunay triangulation that is described
in a 1981 paper by D.F. Watson cited in the patents.” Ali-
aga Decl. ¶ 15.
The claims are properly viewed in light of this
knowledge, for this prior art constitutes “extrinsic evidence
concerning relevant scientific principles [and] the meaning
of technical terms.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1313 (quoting In-
nova/Pure Water, 381 F.3d at 1116). The Court guided in
Nautilus:
One must bear in mind, moreover, that patents are
“not addressed to lawyers, or even to the public
generally,” but rather to those skilled in the rele-
vant art. Carnegie Steel Co. v. Cambria Iron
Co., 185 U.S. 403, 437 (1902) (also stating that
“any description which is sufficient to apprise
[steel manufacturers] in the language of the art of
the definite feature of the invention, and to serve
as a warning to others of what the patent claims as
a monopoly, is sufficiently definite to sustain the
patent”).
572 U.S. at 909. The function of the claims is not to
duplicate the specification.
The district court declined to consider information in
the specification that was not included in the claims. For
example, in rejecting NSS’s argument that the modified
Watson method is described in the specification, the dis-
trict court stated:
NSS points to column 7 of the specification and re-
lies on step 5(a) of column 7 to show the modifica-
tion of the Watson method. (’961 patent at 7:17–
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 13
23). This language adds an additional condition:
“or last segment passes through the triangle.”
Again, this language is not contained in the claim
language and does not explain the challenged claim
language.
Dist. Ct. Op. at 10.
The district court misperceived the function of patent
claims; see In re Vamco Machine & Tool, Inc., 752 F.2d 1564(Fed. Cir. 1985):
The function of claims is (a) to point out what the
invention is in such a way as to distinguish it from
what was previously known, i.e., from the prior art;
and (b) to define the scope of protection afforded by
the patent. In both of those aspects, claims are not
technical descriptions of the disclosed inventions
but are legal documents like the descriptions of
lands by metes and bounds in a deed which define
the area conveyed but do not describe the land.
Id. at 1577 n.5 (emphases original). As noted in SRI Inter-
national v. Matsushita Electric Corp. of Am., 775 F.2d
1107, 1121 n.14 (Fed. Cir. 1985): “Specifications teach.
Claims claim.”
The prosecution history
The prosecution history here is significant, for the pa-
tent examiner had initially rejected the claims on the
ground of indefiniteness, and the examiner required addi-
tional definition in the claim clauses here at issue. For ex-
ample, the examiner had initially rejected the claims for
indefiniteness of the clause “extending intersection lines
until they get closed by searching neighboring triangles;”
the examiner wrote: “What is causing the closure of the in-
tersection lines? The nexus between ‘extending the inter-
section lines’ and ‘searching neighboring triangle pairs’ is
also not clearly set forth.” Appl. No. 15/840,052, Official
Action (Non-Final Rejection) of Feb. 6, 2018, at 3. The
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14 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
applicant, in consultation with the examiner, amended this
term in claim clause [2], as shown in the prosecution rec-
ord:
[2] building intersection lines starting with and
ending with searching for the first pair of triangles
that hold a start point of an intersection line by de-
tecting whether two minimum bounding boxes
overlap and performing edge-triangle intersection
calculations for locating an intersection point, ex
tending the intersection lines until they get closed
by searching neighboring triangles or all triangles
are traversed; then searching neighboring trian-
gles of the last triangle pair that holds the last in-
tersection point to extend the intersection line until
the first intersection point is identical to the last
intersection point of the intersection line ensuring
that the intersection line gets closed or until all tri-
angles are traversed;
Appl. No. 15/840,052, Amend. of Apr. 4, 2018, at 9 (mark-
ings in original). With this amendment the examiner with-
drew the indefiniteness rejection relating to the
intersection lines.
The applicant and the examiner also interacted to
amend the term “modified Watson method.” An Exam-
iner’s Amendment of August 28, 2018 amended claim
clause [3] as follows:
[3] splitting each triangle through which an inter-
section line passes using modified Watson method,
wherein the modified Watson method includes re-
moving duplicate intersection points, identifying
positions of end intersection points, and splitting
portion of each triangle including an upper portion,
a lower portion, and a middle portion;
Appl. No. 15/840,052, Examiner’s Amend. in Notice of Al-
lowance, Sept. 18, 2018, at 4–5 (markings in original).
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 15
With the agreed amendments, the examiner withdrew
the rejections for indefiniteness and allowed the claims. Id.However, the district court rejected the examiner’s con-
clusion as to indefiniteness, the court reciting the initial
rejection and the amendment, and stating that this action
did not answer “the questions posed by Aliaga”:
The prosecution history does not show how or why
the amendment answered the unanswered ques-
tions. The prosecution history does not provide a
clear reason for the amendment that clarifies the
underling ambiguity. The PTO initially rejected
Claim 1 as indefinite: “The nexus between ‘extend-
ing the intersection lines’ and ‘searching neighbor-
ing triangles’ is also not clearly set forth. The
examiner is not able to ascertain the scope of the
claimed invention,” (Dkt. 37-1 (Ex. A at page 4).)
In response, NSS added the following language:
“building intersection lines starting with and end-
ing with . . . calculations for locating an intersection
point, then searching neighboring triangles of the
last triangle pair that holds the last intersection
point to extend the intersection line until the first
intersection point is identical to the last intersec-
tion point of the intersection line ensuring that the
intersection line gets closed or until all triangles
are traversed.” (Id.) This added language does not
answer the questions posed by Aliaga.
Dist. Ct. Op. at 19 (ellipses and parentheticals in original).
The district court gave no weight to the prosecution
history showing the resolution of indefiniteness by adding
the designated technologic limitations to the claims. The
court did not discuss the Examiner’s Amendment, and held
that since Dr. Aliaga’s questions were not answered, the
claims are invalid.
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16 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
Actions by PTO examiners are entitled to appropriate
deference as official agency actions, for the examiners are
deemed to be experienced in the relevant technology as
well as the statutory requirements for patentability:
We presume that an examiner would not introduce
an indefinite term into a claim when he/she chooses
to amend the claim for the very purpose of putting
the application in a condition for allowance.
Tinnus Enters., LLC v. Telebrands Corp., 733 F. App’x
1011, 1020 (Fed. Cir. 2018). See also PowerOasis, Inc. v. T-
Mobile USA, Inc., 522 F.3d 1299, 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2008)
(stating that PTO examiners are “assumed to have some
expertise in interpreting the references and to be familiar
from their work with the level of skill in the art and whose
duty it is to issue only valid patents.” (quoting Am. Hoist &
Derrick Co. v. Sonra & Sons, Inc., 725 F.2d 1350, 1359
(Fed. Cir. 1984) (overruled on other grounds))).
The Court recognized, in discussing claim definiteness,
that:
The standard we adopt accords with opinions of
this Court stating that “the certainty which the law
requires in patents is not greater than is reasona-
ble, having regard to their subject-matter.” Miner-
als Separation, Ltd. v. Hyde, 242 U.S. 261, 270
(1916).
Nautilus, 572 U.S. at 910.
The subject matter herein is an improvement on the
known Watson and Delaunay methods, and partakes of
known usages for established technologies. Precedent
teaches that when “the general approach was sufficiently
well established in the art and referenced in the patent”
this “render[ed] the claims not indefinite.” Presidio Com-
ponents, Inc. v. Am. Tech. Ceramics Corp., 875 F.3d 1369,
1377 (Fed. Cir. 2017). The situation here is analogous, for
the 1981 Watson method and the Delaunay method were
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NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 17
known in the art. It is not disputed that the specification
describes and enables practice of the claimed method, in-
cluding the best mode. The claims, as amended during
prosecution, were held by the examiner to distinguish the
claimed method from the prior art and to define the scope
of the patented subject matter. The district court made no
contrary findings. Indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112was not established as a matter of law.
CONCLUSION
The district court’s decision is reversed. We remand for
further proceedings.
REVERSED AND REMANDED
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United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
AUTODESK, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2020-2257
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California in No. 3:19-cv-03192-SK,
Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim.
______________________
DYK, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
Contrary to the majority, I think that the asserted
claims are invalid because they are indefinite. The fact
that a patent examiner introduced the indefinite language
does not absolve the claims from the requirements of 35
U.S.C. § 112. I respectfully dissent.
The majority faults the district court for applying an
incorrect “unanswered questions” standard, Maj. Op. 9, but
this is not the district court’s decision. In a detailed and
thorough analysis, the district court read the patent’s
claims in light of the specification to determine if it would
inform those skilled in the art about the scope of the inven-
tion with reasonable certainty, which is exactly what is re-
quired under Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 572
Case: 20-2257 Document: 31 Page: 19 Filed: 01/27/2022
2 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
U.S. 898, 910 (2014). Regardless, the question of definite-
ness is a legal question which we review de novo, and the
majority's legal conclusion is, in my view, manifestly incor-
rect.
The field of art here, computer-aided design, is unusu-
ally complex, involving methods of using computer systems
to build geometric objects. The patents purport to improve
on two established methods of computer-aided design: con-
structive solid geometry, which combines simple objects us-
ing Boolean operations (e.g., intersection, combination,
exclusion) to build complex objects, and boundary repre-
sentation, which represents three-dimensional objects by
defining their surfaces as meshes of two-dimensional ob-
jects.
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 10,120,961 (“the ’961 pa-
tent”) claims:
1. A method that performs immediate Boolean op-
erations using geometric facets of geometric objects
implemented in a computer system and operating
with a computer, the method comprising:
mapping rendering facets to extended tri-
angles that contain neighbors;
building intersection lines starting with
and ending with searching for the first pair
of triangles that hold a start point of an in-
tersection line by detecting whether two
minimum bounding boxes overlap and per-
forming edge-triangle intersection calcula-
tions for locating an intersection point,
then searching neighboring triangles of the
last triangle pair that holds the last inter-
section point to extend the intersection line
until the first intersection point is identical
to the last intersection point of the intersec-
tion line ensuring that the intersection line
Case: 20-2257 Document: 31 Page: 20 Filed: 01/27/2022
NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC. 3
gets closed or until all triangles are trav-
ersed;
splitting each triangle through which an
intersection line passes using modified
Watson method, wherein the modified
Watson method includes removing dupli-
cate intersection points, identifying posi-
tions of end intersection points, and
splitting portion of each triangle including
an upper portion, a lower portion, and a
middle portion . . . .
’961 patent, col. 9, ll. 17–40; see also U.S. Patent No.
10,109,105, col. 8, l. 47–col. 9, l. 3. (emphasis added). The
indefiniteness issue concerns the underscored language.
There is no dispute that the term “modified Watson
method” does not have, and did not have at the time the
patents were issued, an ordinary and customary meaning
to a person of ordinary skill in the art. The majority finds
that Figures 12 and 13 of each patent define the “modified
Watson method.” Maj. Op. 11–12 (“The specification de-
scribes the Watson and Delaunay prior art, in text and
drawings to show how they are used and modified in the
subject invention.”). Figures 12A through 12H of the pa-
tents at issue “show a Delaunay mesh sequence in which
each intersection point is inserted into the mesh step by
step,” while Figure 13 “is the flowchart of Delaunay mesh
modified Watson method that created the sequence of [Fig-
ures] 12A through 12H.” ’961 patent, col. 3, ll. 36–41.
The problem with the majority’s definition is that it ig-
nores the claim language. As the district court found, J.A.
9–10, and Nature concedes, Nature Reply Br. 6, claim 1
adds limitations not found in Figures 12A–H or 13: “remov-
ing duplicate intersection points, identifying positions of
end intersection points, and splitting portion of each trian-
gle including an upper portion, a lower portion, and a mid-
dle portion.” Thus, the majority’s definition of “modified
Case: 20-2257 Document: 31 Page: 21 Filed: 01/27/2022
4 NATURE SIMULATION SYSTEMS INC. v. AUTODESK, INC.
Watson method” in claim 1 is inconsistent with the claim
itself: the majority looks to figures 12 and 13 to find the
“modified Watson method” but those figures do not include
the additional limitations which are expressly required by
the claim language. Even more significant, nothing in the
patent specification defines what these additional limita-
tions mean. The only expert evidence on these limitations
in the record is by Autodesk’s expert, who testified without
contradiction that these limitations are “not describe[d]” in
the patent, “ambiguous” and “unclear,” and “inconsistent
with” Figure 13 and the accompanying text. J.A. 54–56.
The majority simply does not address this problem, in-
stead relying on the fact that these limitations were sug-
gested by the patent examiner. The majority holds that
“[a]ctions by PTO examiners are entitled to appropriate
deference” because examiners are “deemed to be experi-
enced in the relevant technology as well as the statutory
requirements for patentability.” Maj. Op. 16. But the test
for definiteness is whether the claims “inform those skilled
in the art about the scope of the invention with reasonable
certainty,” Nautilus, 572 U.S. at 910, not whether the claim
language was added by a patent examiner or was not in-
definite to the examiner. There is no reasonable basis in
the claims or specification for the majority’s decision. I re-
spectfully dissent.