Appeal No. 2002-0308
Application No. 09/106,784
No references are relied on.
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §101 as being directed to non-
statutory subject matter because the claims describe an “abstract” idea.
Reference is made to the brief and answer for the respective positions of
appellant and the examiner.
OPINION
It is the examiner’s position that the instant claimed invention “lacks a practical
application providing a useful, concrete, and tangible result because it is directed to an
abstract idea. The claimed invention receives abstract input data, performs
mathematical operations, and outputs abstract data” (answer-page 11).
Appellant, naturally, takes the opposite view, contending that the instant claimed
“invention constitutes a practical application of mathematical principles to achieve a
useful, concrete, and tangible result,” that the invention “is not restricted to specific
applications,” and that predictive “modeling technology, in general, and Appellant’s
invention, in particular, are useful in a very wide range of applications” (brief-page 23)
We begin our inquiry, as we must, with the specific claims before us.
Independent claim 1 makes it very clear that we are dealing with a structure, a “program
storage device” that is readable by a machine. Thus, we are not dealing with an
“abstract” idea existing only in one’s mind. Further, the claimed subject matter is
directed to the computer program that is executed by the machine in order to perform
2
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