Appeal No. 1998-1734
Application No. 07/508,024
of a mathematical algorithm, formula, or calculation.” State
Street, 149 F.3d at 1373, 47 USPQ2d at 1601. The court indicated
therein that the focus of a statutory subject analysis should be
“on the essential characteristics of the subject matter, in
particular, its practical utility.” State Street, 149 F.3d at
1375, 47 USPQ2d at 1602. These principles appear to have been
reinforced in AT&T Corp v. Excel Communications, Inc., 172 F.3d
1352, 1356, 50 USPQ2d 1447, 1450 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
Applying these principles to the instant claimed subject
matter, we find that the instant claims are directed to practical
applications of computer-implemented methods and apparatus for
planning a physical path for a physical object to follow in a
physical task space. While mathematical algorithms may be
involved in the processing data to update a configuration space
data structure, the “essential characteristic” of the subject
matter, or its “practical utility,” is to plan a physical path
for an object to follow in a physical task space by reacting to
condition changes and updating signals stored in the
configuration space data structure in order to provide parameter
signals for the object to use to follow the physical path. This
is clear from the language of independent method claims 1 and 30.
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