It's not a multi-factor test in the sense of "weigh these four factors and then do what you were going to do anyway." It gives you a process for thinking about whether a patent covers ineligible subject matter. First, you ask: "is the patent directed to some abstract matter?" If it is, then you ask: "when the claims are considered as an ordered combination, do they add something more to the abstract idea so the patent isn't just a patent on the idea itself?"

It does a pretty good job of capturing the idea that, e.g., you can't patent "packet filtering" but you may[1] be able to patent a specific process for packet filtering that, say, minimizes how many bytes of each packet you have to process.

[1] Whether you should be able to patent a specific process for packet filtering is a different question. I'm not saying Alice is a good articulation of what the law should be. But I think it's a decent way of thinking about patents and coming up with the "right answer" as section 101 intends to define what the right answer is.

The problem is the question "is the patent directed to some abstract matter?" Because every patent claim abstracts from a particular implementation to a broader category of covered subject matter. That's literally the entire point of a claim, to capture the new idea instead of just a particular device.

Then we get into questions about whether it's an "improper" type of abstractness, which is totally unworkable and hasn't been fleshed out by the courts.

The Supreme Court should have just said what they appear to have meant--that business methods are ineligible subject matter.