Appeal No. 2001-0161
Application No. 08/784,087
OPINION
After careful consideration of the record before us, we will
not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of claim 13 through 50.
The Examiner argues that Appellant's claims do not produce a
useful, concrete and tangible result. The Examiner argues that
the Appellant's claims are "merely protocols or protocol stacks
which can be considered as subroutines or programs." See page 4
of the Examiner's answer.
The Federal Circuit in State Street Bank v. Signature
Financial, 47 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1998) first identified the
three categories that are not patentable--laws of nature, natural
phenomena and abstract ideas. The opinion went on to note that
"subject matter is unpatentable only to the extent that it
represents an abstract idea" and is thus not "useful." Id. at
1600-01 & n.4. Later in its opinion, the court returned to this
issue: "[T]he mere fact that a claimed invention involves
inputting numbers, calculating numbers, outputting numbers, and
storing numbers, in and of itself, would not render it
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