Business Methods and Software Patenting

Naturally occurring items such as plants or minerals are, in general, ineligible for utility patent protection because they are viewed as belonging in the public domain. There is a dichotomy between those items that are naturally occurring, and consequently unpatentable, and those items that are not found in nature, which are patentable. Portions of items found in nature are eligible for patent protection if their claimed form is changed from their natural form. Thus, some items ‘discovered’ in nature may be patented when the patentee both finds them and purifies or extracts them from their natural state.