Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

Cite as:  561 U. S. ____ (2010) 

23 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

Statutory  Useful  Arts,  34  J.  Pat.  Off.  Soc.  487,  493–500 
(1952);  see  also  Thomas,  The  Patenting  of  the  Liberal
Professions,  40  Boston  College  L. Rev.  1139,  1164  (1999) 
(“[The  Framers  of  the  Constitution]  undoubtedly  contem-
plated  the  industrial,  mechanical  and  manual  arts  of  the 
late  eighteenth  Century,  in  contrast  to  the  seven  ‘liberal 
arts’ and the four ‘fine arts’ of classical learning”).  Indeed, 
just  days  before  the  Constitutional  Convention,  one  dele-
gate  listed  examples  of  American  progress  in  “manufac-
tures and  the useful arts,” all of  which involved the  crea-
tion  or  transformation  of  physical  substances.  See  T. 
Coxe, An Address to an Assembly of the Friends of Ameri-
can  Manufactures  17–18  (1787)  (listing,  inter  alia,  meal, 
ships,  liquors,  potash,  gunpowder,  paper,  starch,  articles
of iron, stone work, carriages, and harnesses).  Numerous 
scholars  have  suggested  that  the  term  “useful  arts”  was 
widely  understood  to  encompass  the  fields  that  we  would 
now  describe  as  relating  to  technology  or  “technological 
arts.”29 

—————— 

today call mechanics, technology, and engineering).  See also D. Defoe, 
A  General  History  of  Discoveries  and  Improvements,  in  Useful  Arts
(1727); T. Coxe, An Address to an Assembly of the Friends of American 
Manufactures  17–18  (1787);  G.  Logan,  A  Letter  to  the  Citizens  of 
Pennsylvania,  on  the  Necessity  of  Promoting  Agriculture,  Manufac-
tures, and the Useful Arts 12–13 (2d ed. 1800); W. Kenrick, An Address
to  the  Artists  and  Manufacturers  of  Great  Britain  21–38  (1774);  cf. 
Corning  v.  Burden,  15  How.  252,  267  (1854)  (listing  the  “arts  of  tan-
ning, dyeing, making water-proof cloth, vulcanizing India rubber, [and] 
smelting ores”). 

29 See,  e.g.,  1  D.  Chisum,  Patents  G1–23  (2010);  Lutz,  Patents  and
Science: A Clarification of the Patent Clause of the U. S. Constitution, 
18  Geo.  Wash.  L. Rev.  50,  54  (1949–1950);  Samuelson,  Benson  Revis-
ited:  The  Case  Against  Patent  Protection  for  Algorithms  and  Other
Computer-Related Inventions, 39 Emory L. J. 1025, 1033, n.  24 (1990);
Seidel 10, 13; see also Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket 
Equipment  Corp.,  340  U. S.  147,  154  (1950)  (Douglas,  J.,  concurring)
(explaining that in the Framers’ view, an “invention, to justify a patent,
had to serve the ends of science—to push back the frontiers of chemis-