On March 2, 2012, in MySpace v. Graphon, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court's summary judgment ruling that Graphon's patents are invalid as anticipated and obvious in view of the prior art rather than determining whether the patent claims patent-eligible subject matter under Section 101 of the Patent Act.

Writing for the majority, Judge Plager noted that Graphon's patents, which are directed to a method and apparatus that allow a user to create, modify and search a database record over a computer network, are invalid because a similar system had been developed and made available to the public over two years before Graphon's earliest priority date.

The court declined to analyze the validity of the patents under Section 101, which sets out the subject matter eligibility requirements for patent protection. The majority reasoned that it should avoid interpreting broad provisions, such as Section 101, when more specific statutes like Sections 102 (anticipation) and 103 (obviousness) can easily decide the case. Specifically, the majority stated that by requiring the parties to initially address patentability defenses such as under Sections 102 and 103, patent litigation would:

Judge Newman joined Judge Plager's opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Mayer argued that the issue of whether a claimed method meets the subject matter eligibility requirements of Section 101 of the Patent Act is an antecedent question that must be addressed before the issues of anticipation and obviousness are reached. He argued that the majority's approach has been woefully inadequate in preventing a deluge of very poor quality patents and that Section 101:

For more information on patents, generally, see Practice Notes, Patent: Overview and Patent Infringement Claims and Defenses.