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ARTICLE · 17 JANUARY 2020

Federal Circuit Reverses Section 101 Ineligibility Determination Of Error Correction Algorithm Patent

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Emphasizing that "the appealed claims represent a non-abstract improvement in the functionality of an existing technological process and not simply an abstract idea of manipulating data

United StatesIntellectual Property
Rachel J. Elsby
Rachel J. Elsby
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Emphasizing that “the appealed claims represent a non-abstract improvement in the functionality of an existing technological process and not simply an abstract idea of manipulating data” or “a mere desired result,” for which computers are invoked merely as a tool, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court in Koninklijke KPN N.V. v. Gemalto M2M GmbH and held that the claims met the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 101. This case adds to the rapidly growing body of Federal Circuit clarifications on the application of Section 101 to software related patents.

In the underlying district court litigation, Koninklijke KPN (KPN) asserted U.S. Patent No. 6,212,662 (“the ’622 Patent”) against several defendants (“the Appellees”). The ’622 Patent covers an improvement to error detection systems used in data transmission. In the prior art, these systems would detect transmission errors by having the transmitting side of the system compute “check data” based on the underlying

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