Can I Patent a Process If People Already Do It Manually?

Paul Stuart – MLO Patent Agent and Business Development Manager 

5/4/2026 

I recently watched my daughter invent a game in our living room.

The rules were elaborate. There were stuffed animals. There was a scoring system. There were penalties, bonus rounds, alliances, and apparently a governing body with the power to issue sanctions. I did not fully understand the game, but I was told with great confidence that I had lost.

As a parent, I admired the creativity. As a patent professional, a familiar question came to mind: is this an invention, or is this a set of rules for organizing human behavior?

That distinction comes up more often than many people expect.

When people think about patent eligibility issues under Section 101 of the US Patent Law, they often think about software. And that makes sense. Many recent patent eligibility disputes have involved software, artificial intelligence, data processing, and computer-implemented inventions.

But Section 101 is not just a software issue. It can also come up when someone is trying to patent a method that looks more like a manual process, a business workflow, a sales strategy, a training method, a legal process, a financial arrangement, a customer interaction, or a way of organizing people.

In other words, sometimes the issue is not whether the idea is useful. The issue is whether the patent claims are directed to the kind of thing the patent system protects.

“But It’s a Process”

One common misconception is that a method should be patent-eligible simply because it includes steps.

After all, Section 101 expressly lists a “process” as one of the categories of patentable subject matter. So if an invention is written as a series of steps, it can feel like it should clear the first hurdle.

But not every process is treated the same way.

A method of manufacturing a new material is one thing. A method of treating a medical condition is another. A method of controlling a machine in a new way may also present a strong technical foundation.

But a method of organizing a meeting, assigning tasks to employees, structuring a sales conversation, managing a legal obligation, pricing a service, or teaching people how to make decisions can quickly start to look like an abstract idea.

That does not mean these ideas lack value. Some of them may be extremely valuable. They may reflect years of practical experience, market insight, and careful refinement. But the patent system does not protect every valuable idea.

This is where 101 can become frustrating for clients. The question is not simply, “Is this new?” or “Would this help our business?” The better question may be, “What, exactly, are we trying to protect?”

Human Activity Is a Warning Light

When a proposed invention can be performed entirely by people using ordinary judgment, conversation, paperwork, or mental steps, the risk of having a Section 101 challenge tends to increase.

For example, imagine a company develops a new process for matching customers with service providers. The process may involve collecting customer preferences, comparing those preferences to provider availability, assigning a score, and recommending a match.

That may be a useful business process. It may even be commercially successful. But if the patent claims simply describe the idea of gathering information, evaluating it, and making a recommendation, the claims may be vulnerable to a Section 101 rejection. 

The same issue can arise with methods for onboarding employees, coaching users through a decision, ranking business opportunities, managing compliance obligations, allocating resources, or improving customer engagement.

Again, the problem is not that these ideas are unimportant. The problem is that they may look like methods of organizing human activity or mental processes unless the application is built around something significantly more concrete.  Speeding up the process to be in “real time” will not solve the issue.

The Better Question

Clients often start with the question, “Can we patent this process?”

That is a fair question. But it may not be the most useful first question.

A better set of questions might be:

·       What part of the process creates the business value?

·       What part of the process is actually new?

·       What part of the process is technical?

·       What part of the process could a person perform with a clipboard?

·       What would a competitor need to copy for us to care?

And if the process is not a great fit for patent protection, are there other tools—contracts, trade secrets, branding, copyright, or operational discipline—that may better protect the business?

Those questions may not produce the quick yes-or-no answer that a client wants. But they usually lead to a better strategy.

The Right Tool for the Right Kind of Idea

Some ideas are best protected with patents. Some are better protected as trade secrets. Some are protected by execution, brand strength, contracts, data, customer relationships, or simply being better at the process than everyone else.

That does not make the idea less valuable. It just means we need to be honest about what kind of idea it is.

At MLO, when a client brings us a manual process, business method, or human-centered workflow, we do not just ask whether it is clever. We ask what kind of protection fits the idea, where the Section 101 risks may be hiding, and whether there is a technical foundation strong enough to support a patent strategy.

Because sometimes the most important question is not whether someone invented a better game.  It is whether the patent system is the right fit or if we should be investigating other types of protection.