Appeal No. 95-2552
Application 07/886,228
man except machinery upon the one side, and compositions of matter and designs on the other."
1 Chisum, Patents § 1.02[3] (1994), quoting W. Robinson, The Law of Patents for Useful Inventions
270 (1890). The communication systems are comprised of physical man-made articles, "a plurality of
artificial satellites . . . each artificial satellite having communication means providing communication with
the Earth," which are arranged in a man-made constellation. The communications system has utility in
the technological field of telecommunications and thus is subject matter consistent with the
Constitutional purpose to promote the progress of "useful arts," Article 1, Section 8. Accordingly, the
systems of claims 1 and 15 are considered statutory subject matter under § 101 within the class of a
"manufacture."
The communication system of claims 1 and 15 does not fall within one of the exclusions of "laws
of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas." The system is manifestly not a "law of nature" or a
"natural phenomenon." As stated in Jacobs, The Patentability of Printed Matter: Critique and Proposal,
18 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 475, 478 (June 1950):
The term "abstract ideas" has been used to describe those ideas which are not embodied in
corporeal form. It covers such unpatentable subjects or arts as laws of science, systems of
notation, business methods and methods involving the emotional and intellectual facilities.
Here we are dealing with physical subject matter, artificial satellites each with communication means,
in a specific physical arrangement. Therefore, the subject matter of claims 1 and 15 is not merely an
abstract idea. We see that there are ways to claim the subject matter that would be nonstatutory, e.g.,
a claim to the constellation or pattern per se without the satellites; however, these are not the claims on
appeal.
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