an "abstract idea, and therefore were not patent-eligible subject matter. The Board then found that a "paradigm" does not fall within any of section 101's four enumerated categories of statutory subject matter. Then, turning to the paradigm claims' internal reference to "a marketing company," the Board said: There is nothing in the record of this case that would suggest that "a marketing company" can be considered to be a process, a machine, a manufacture or a composition of matter. In other words, the paradigm claims on appeal are not directed to statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because they are not directed to subject matter within the four recognized categories of patentable inventions. Therefore, the paradigm claims, claims 24-35, are not patentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for at least this reason. Federal Circuit decision The method claims fell within the dictionary concept of a 'process," but were excluded from the statutory meaning of that term by the decision in Bilski. That decision holds that the Supreme Court's machine-or-transformation test is the "definitive test to determine whether a process claim is tailored narrowly enough to encompass only a particular application of a fundamental principle rather than to pre-empt the principle itself." Claim 1 does not satisfy either prong of the machine-or-transformation test. "Applicants' method claims are not tied to any particular machine or apparatus. Although Applicants argue that the method claims are tied to the use of a shared marketing force, a marketing force is not a machine or apparatus," because it is not a "mechanical device or combination of mechanical powers and devices to perform some function and produce a certain effect or result.'" Furthermore, the method does not cause a transformation of an article into a different state or thing: At best it can be said that Applicants' methods are directed to organizing business or legal relationships in the structuring of a sales force (or marketing company). But as this court stated in Bilski, "[p]urported transformations or manipulations simply of public or private legal obligations or relationships, business risks, or other such abstractions cannot meet the test because they are not physical objects or substances, and they are not representative of physical objects or substances. Therefore, Ferguson's method does not satisfy the machine-or-transformation test. Because they preceded Bilski, the Board's opinion and the parties' briefs and arguments extensively discussed the "useful, concrete, and tangible" test. "To