> Here, the court repeated its stance that mere data gathering steps such as "obtaining information" cannot be sufficient to "make an otherwise nonstatutory cla

> Here, the court repeated its stance that mere data gathering steps such as "obtaining information" cannot be sufficient to "make an otherwise nonstatutory claim statutory." It's just poor drafting. If they'd said "do all this stuff to determine if the credit card is valid" and added "if is valid, then execute the internet transaction, otherwise deny it" as part of the claim, then it would not merely be providing information - and could not be done with paper and pencil alone. You need to make a change in the world, i.e. execute the transaction. Usually, a patent would have later "dependent" claims, that further restricted an initial overly broad claim, but apparently they didn't here. I get the impression that the court is being a bit pedantic, as it's clear what was meant; however, it is true that pure information can be used in many ways, not necessarily restricted to execute/deny.