Appeal 2007-0224
Application 09/754,785
result or effect is produced by chemical action, by the operation or
application of some element or power of nature, or of one substance to
another, such modes, methods, or operations are called processes.”); see also
AT&T, 172 F.3d at 1356, 50 USPQ2d at 1450 (“any step-by-step process, be
it electronic, chemical, or mechanical, involves an ‘algorithm’ in the broad
sense of the term.”). Accordingly, we do not believe that the boundaries of
“process” should be so expansive as to accommodate all “useful” methods.
(ii)
“Process” Definition and Appellant’s Claims
To reiterate, we believe that “process” should not be broadened so as
to include any method that may be deemed useful, such as Appellant’s
method and system claims that do not require a machine to perform a
transformation (i.e., reordering of software components). Following
Schrader, Appellant’s claims are unpatentable under section 101. The
claims are similar to those rejected in Schrader, while distinguishable from
Arrhythmia, Alappat, State Street, and AT&T. The claims do not transform
any physical article to a different state or thing. The reordering of
components of a software module produced by the claims, while perhaps
“useful” in one sense, is simply not the product of any transformation as
understood in the case law (i.e., transformation or conversion of subject
matter representative of or constituting physical activity or objects or
transformation of data or signals by a machine). Further, the claims do not
illustrates that Appellant’s claims fall outside the currently existing tests for
eligibility and sees no reason to expand the existing tests to cover
Appellant’s claims.
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