Appeal No. 95-0394
Application No. 08/065,786
are merely abstract ideas constituting disembodied concepts or
truths that are not “useful.” From a practical standpoint,
this means that to be patentable an algorithm must be applied
in a “useful” way. See State Street Bank & Trust Co. v.
Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368, 47 USPQ2d 1596
(Fed. Cir. 1998).
Independent claim 10 is directed to a method for
loading data into a specifically-configured memory and to the
combination of this stored data with a video signal to
generate a wipe solid. The claim recites a specific
relationship between the memories and the characteristics of a
video signal, and the claim combines outputs from these
memories synchronously with the video signal. We are of the
view that the claimed method for generating a wipe solid
clearly has practical utility. Even if a “mathematical
algorithm” is used to combine the stored data with the video
signal and could be considered an abstract idea, that abstract
idea is clearly employed in a useful way. The invention of
claim 10 is not directed to the mere computation of one set of
values from another set of values, but rather, to the physical
and useful steps of loading data into and reading data from
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