ORAL ARGUMENTS, WASTE OF TIME? ABSOLUTELY !!! Below is part of the Reply Argument to SecureAuth's Response.
-1- REPLY ARGUMENT SecureAuth’s Response ignores the innovative way the Asserted Claims address a particular problem arising from the anonymous nature of modern communications systems—namely, a hacker impersonating an authorized user by using stolen credentials to try to remotely access protected data in a “self-authenticating environment.” Appx32 (2:20-22). The claimed solutions present a specific technological innovation by using separate access and authentication channels and intercepting and re-routing access requests such that all authentication activity occurs in the isolated authentication channel. Contrary to SecureAuth’s suggestions, this solution is far narrower than the general concept of “out-of-band” authentication. The patents’ specification—which, for purposes of SecureAuth’s motion, must be taken as true—specifically disparages and distinguishes conventional “in-band” and partially “out-of-band” authentication systems and explains why the claimed architecture overcomes the problems associated with those systems. Specifically, to attack StrikeForce’s completely out-of-band system, a hacker would need to breach two channels simultaneously; it also offers a less costly, tokenless system that could use fixed identifiers, including individualized biometric data. Because the Asserted Claims claim a novel security system for performing completely out-of-band authentication in a specific way that overcomes Case: 18-1470 Document: 27 Page: 8 Filed: 06/04/2018
-2- technological problems in the prior art, these claims are not abstract under Alice step one. SecureAuth relies on a false analogy between the Asserted Claims and a fictional “preschool security system.” But that analogy is directed to a fundamentally different problem, and a genuinely analogous system would be nonsensical in the real world. SecureAuth’s use of hindsight to concoct a fictional and unworkable pre-computer “analogy” to map onto the claims’ limitations cannot substitute for careful review of the claims. SecureAuth’s Alice step two arguments also fail. Precedent prohibits defining the claims at a high level of abstraction for step one, but then at step two treating the “idea” more narrowly, as though it already subsumed the invention’s novel features. But that is precisely what the district court did and what SecureAuth invites this Court to do. Whether at step one or step two, the analysis must acknowledge the innovative manner in which the claims arrange otherwise generic components to create a novel system that overcomes the problems in existing systems. Moreover, to the extent necessary, the Court should address claim construction. Relatedly, a court cannot, as SecureAuth urges, hold unpatentable the entirety of the Asserted Claims on the basis of a single claim, claim 53, that, as mischaracterized by SecureAuth, omits critical inventive features found in other asserted claims. Case: 18-1470 Document: 27 Page: 9 Filed: 06/04/2018
https://jumpshare.com/v/DTfcX8CMb23MRwOG01GX
-1- REPLY ARGUMENT SecureAuth’s Response ignores the innovative way the Asserted Claims address a particular problem arising from the anonymous nature of modern communications systems—namely, a hacker impersonating an authorized user by using stolen credentials to try to remotely access protected data in a “self-authenticating environment.” Appx32 (2:20-22). The claimed solutions present a specific technological innovation by using separate access and authentication channels and intercepting and re-routing access requests such that all authentication activity occurs in the isolated authentication channel. Contrary to SecureAuth’s suggestions, this solution is far narrower than the general concept of “out-of-band” authentication. The patents’ specification—which, for purposes of SecureAuth’s motion, must be taken as true—specifically disparages and distinguishes conventional “in-band” and partially “out-of-band” authentication systems and explains why the claimed architecture overcomes the problems associated with those systems. Specifically, to attack StrikeForce’s completely out-of-band system, a hacker would need to breach two channels simultaneously; it also offers a less costly, tokenless system that could use fixed identifiers, including individualized biometric data. Because the Asserted Claims claim a novel security system for performing completely out-of-band authentication in a specific way that overcomes Case: 18-1470 Document: 27 Page: 8 Filed: 06/04/2018
-2- technological problems in the prior art, these claims are not abstract under Alice step one. SecureAuth relies on a false analogy between the Asserted Claims and a fictional “preschool security system.” But that analogy is directed to a fundamentally different problem, and a genuinely analogous system would be nonsensical in the real world. SecureAuth’s use of hindsight to concoct a fictional and unworkable pre-computer “analogy” to map onto the claims’ limitations cannot substitute for careful review of the claims. SecureAuth’s Alice step two arguments also fail. Precedent prohibits defining the claims at a high level of abstraction for step one, but then at step two treating the “idea” more narrowly, as though it already subsumed the invention’s novel features. But that is precisely what the district court did and what SecureAuth invites this Court to do. Whether at step one or step two, the analysis must acknowledge the innovative manner in which the claims arrange otherwise generic components to create a novel system that overcomes the problems in existing systems. Moreover, to the extent necessary, the Court should address claim construction. Relatedly, a court cannot, as SecureAuth urges, hold unpatentable the entirety of the Asserted Claims on the basis of a single claim, claim 53, that, as mischaracterized by SecureAuth, omits critical inventive features found in other asserted claims. Case: 18-1470 Document: 27 Page: 9 Filed: 06/04/2018
https://jumpshare.com/v/DTfcX8CMb23MRwOG01GX
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