Appeal 2006-2107
Application 09/969,833
electrocardiograph signals” “by a machine” “constituted a practical
application of an abstract idea.” State Street, 149 F.3d at 1373, 47 USPQ2d
at 1601. Specifically, the court in Arrhythmia stated “the number obtained is
not a mathematical abstraction; it is a measure in microvolts of a specified
heart activity, an indicator of the risk of ventricular tachycardia.” 958 F.2d at
1062, 22 USPQ2d at 1039. Likewise, in State Street, the court held that “the
transformation of data” “by a machine” “into a final share price, constitutes
a practical application of a mathematical algorithm” because “a final share
price [is] momentarily fixed for recording and reporting purposes and even
accepted and relied upon by regulatory authorities and in subsequent trades.”
149 F.3d at 1373, 47 USPQ2d at 1601. Thus, while Diehr involved the
transformation of a tangible object – curing synthetic rubber – Federal
Circuit also regards the transformation of intangible subject matter to
similarly be eligible, so long as data or signals represent some real world
activity.
The Federal Circuit has never held or indicated that a non-machine
implemented process involving no transformation can qualify as a “process”
under § 101. In fact, confronted with such claims, it has rejected them
consistently. See In re Schrader, 22 F.3d 290, 294-295, 30 USPQ2d 1455,
1458 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Grams, 888 F.2d 835, 837, 12 USPQ2d 1824,
1826 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (rejecting claims to method of evaluating a system
that incorporated a mathematical algorithm, where the only physical step
was a data gathering step that was not tied to the algorithm); In re Maucorps,
609 F.2d 481, 484, 203 USPQ 812, 815 (CCPA 1979); In re Meyer, 688
F.2d 789, 796, 215 USPQ 193, 198 (CCPA 1982); see also In re Alappat, 33
F.3d at 1543, 31 USPQ2d at 1556 (“Maucorps dealt with a business
methodology for deciding how salesmen should best handle respective
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