Opinion ID: 209167
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Paradigm Claims

Text: Turning now to Applicants' paradigm claims, this court's recent decisions in In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346 (Fed.Cir. 2007), cert. denied sub nom. Nuijten v. Dudas, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 70, 172 L.Ed.2d 27 (2008), [5] and in Bilski are instructive. As in Nuijten, Applicants' paradigm claims force us to consider whether the claimed subject matter fits into any of the four enumerated categories of statutory subject matter. Although we need not resolve the particular class of statutory subject matter into which Applicants' paradigm claims fall, the claims must satisfy at least one category. Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1354 (If a claim covers material not found in any of the four statutory categories, that claim falls outside the plainly expressed scope of § 101 even if the subject matter is otherwise new and useful.). We hold that they do not. Applicants' paradigm claims are not directed to processes, as no act or series of acts is required. Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1355. Applicants do not argue otherwise. Applicants' marketing company paradigm is also not a manufacture, because although a marketing company may own or produce tangible articles or commodities, it clearly cannot itself be an `article[]' resulting from the process of manufacture. Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1356. Again, Applicants do not argue otherwise. And Applicants' marketing company paradigm is certainly not a composition of matter. Applicants do not argue otherwise. Applicants do assert, however, that [a] company is a physical thing, and as such analogous to a machine. But the paradigm claims do not recite a concrete thing, consisting of parts, or of certain devices and combination of devices, Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1355, and as Applicants conceded during oral argument, you cannot touch the company. Recording of Oral Argument at 11:30-11:32, In re Ferguson, No.XXXX-XXXX (Fed.Cir. Dec. 5, 2007), available at http://oralarguments. cafc.uscourts.gov/mp3/XXXX-XXXX.mp3. To the contrary, Applicants do no more than provide an abstract ideaa business model for an intangible marketing company. [6] See Bilski, 545 F.3d at 952 (The true issue before us then is whether Applicants are seeking to claim a fundamental principle (such as an abstract idea) or a mental process.). Indeed, it can be said that Applicants' paradigm claims are drawn quite literally to the paradigmatic `abstract idea.' Cf. In re Warmerdam, 33 F.3d 1354, 1360 (Fed.Cir.1994). Applicants' argument is, therefore, unavailing. Absent identity with any statutory category, Applicants' paradigm claims are, therefore, unpatentable as not directed to statutory subject matter. [7]