Appeal 2007-1089
Application 10/348,277
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 – the Federal Circuit also regards the transformation of intangible
subject matter by a machine to similarly be eligible, so long as data or
signals represent some real world activity.
We note the Federal Circuit has never held or indicated that a 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
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