USPO will patent just about anything if you ask - and at least make a passing attempt to show a useful application of the concept. It was encouraged after the State Street Bank v Signature Financial case in the 90s.
Used to run into this all the time when working in the electronics industry, as software folks were always patenting mathematical formulae. Seem to remember once being told by our counsel that the Pythagorean theorem had been patented for use in computer code
- don't know if that was true or not, but it seemed like a real possibility at the time.
Meantime, this affair is not good news for my HD viewing pleasure.