Subject Matter

Subject matter, in general, is anything which can be content for some theory.

Subject matter may refer to:

  • Patentable subject matter (or statutory subject matter), defining whether patent protection is available
  • Subject-matter jurisdiction, determining the kinds of claims or disputes over which a court has jurisdiction
  • Subject-matter expert, an expert in a particular area
  • Subject matter expert Turing test, a variation of the Turing test where a computer system attempts to replicate an expert in a given field

Famous quotes containing the words subject and/or matter:

    This letter will be delivered to you by my child,—the child of my adoption,—my affection! Unblest with one natural friend, she merits a thousand. I send her to you innocent as an angel, and artless as purity itself; and I send you with her the heart of your friend, the only hope he has on earth, the subject of his tenderest thoughts, and the object of his latest cares.
    Frances Burney (1752–1840)

    If the accumulated wealth of the past generations is thus tainted,—no matter how much of it is offered to us,—we must begin to consider if it were not the nobler part to renounce it, and to put ourselves in primary relations with the soil and nature, and abstaining from whatever is dishonest and unclean, to take each of us bravely his part, with his own hands, in the manual labor of the world.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)