France Telecom S.A. v. Marvell Semiconductor
Inc., Case No. 12-cv-04967-WHO (Judge William
Orrick)
Section 101 motions have become increasingly popular,
particularly in the cases running up and through the Supreme
Court's Bilski v. Kappos decision in 2010.
Indeed,
some Judges have suggested that Section 101 issues should be
highlighted early, as they may be the basis for early case
resolution. However because of the highly claim specific
nature of these motions, forecasting the odds of prevailing on
these motions is anything but easy.
Judge Orrick's opinion regarding the error-correction coding
and decoding claims at issue in France Telecom illustrates
the claim driven nature of the Section 101 analysis. In that
case, Defendant Marvell filed a motion for summary judgment of
invalidity on two claims of the asserted patent because they only
cover abstract ideas, i.e., error-correction coding and decoding,
and hence are unpatentable subject matter under section
