Appeal No. 95-4220
Application No. 08/176,297
Freeman-Walter-Abele test has little, if any, applicability to
determining the presence of statutory subject matter. State
Street Bank & Trust Co., v. Signature Financial Group, Inc.,
149 F.3d 1368, 47 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
The examiner’s application of the Freeman-Walter-Abele
test determined that the instant claims recite an algorithm.
However, as noted by the court in State Street Bank, 149 F.3d
1368, 1373, 47 USPQ2d 1596,1602 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
the mere fact that a claimed invention involves
inputting numbers, calculating numbers,
outputting numbers, and storing numbers, in and
of itself, would not render it nonstatutory
subject matter, unless... its operation does not
produce a “useful, concrete and tangible
result.”
The instant claimed invention clearly is directed to
producing a useful, concrete and tangible result, that result
being the generation of an output indicative of the estimate
of total power dissipation characteristics of a circuit. That
output, as recited in independent claims 5 and 12, is then
further used to design circuits.
Since the instant claimed subject matter clearly has
practical utility, a real world use that is more than a mere
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