Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Gee, new methods for doing things with computers would be processes. However, naked ideas and laws of nature are not patentable. Google it...
Doesn’t Franklin Raines hold the patent for Cap and Trade?
He never had to produce a working model; it was just an idea sketched out.