If we can digitally describe something as a sequence of bytes, and we stack those bytes end-to-end, can we not say that the bytes together form a (very large) integer, and that the integer already appears in the set of natural numbers?
The US system does prevent math from being claimed. Others have tried to explain the inherent math nature by making products with function languages of varying purity. These claims fell on deft ears.
On deaf ears, you mean? (Or perhaps daft?)
tl;dr: Abstract "existence", as numbers have, is not the same thing legally or practically as concrete "existence", as files have.