Appeal No. 95-1888
Application 08/011,042
the software. Generally speaking, causing or controlling a
computer’s operation or execution of programs there within is
within the technological arts. Specifically, granting or
denying accessibility to data or software within or on a
computer system is a practical application within 35 U.S.C. §
101 of any mathematical operations so recited. Between the
preamble recitations and the recitations within the body of
each independent claim, there is an integration of the
operations to control in some way the operation of computer
programs within a given machine, namely the computer executing
the software.
This reasoning is true even for the article of manufacture-
type claims 16-19 involving a program product apparatus
including the recitation of at least one software module
recorded on recording media.
The examiner’s reasoning in part was based upon the so-
called Freeman-Walter-Abele test. However, the Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently indicated in State
Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc.,
149 F.3d 1368, 1374, 47 USPQ2d 1596, 1601 (Fed. Cir.
1998), that “application of the test could be misleading,
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