Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 4

4 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

Syllabus 

15. 

(e) Because  petitioners’  patent  application  can  be  rejected  under 
the  Court’s  precedents  on  the  unpatentability  of  abstract  ideas,  the
Court  need  not  define  further  what  constitutes  a  patentable  “proc-
ess,”  beyond  pointing  to  the  definition  of  that  term  provided  in 
§100(b)  and  looking  to  the  guideposts  in  Benson,  Flook,  and  Diehr. 
Nothing  in  today’s  opinion  should  be  read  as  endorsing  the  Federal 
Circuit’s past interpretations of §101.  See, e.g., State Street, 49 F. 3d, 
at 1373.  The appeals court may have thought it needed to make the
machine-or-transformation  test  exclusive  precisely  because  its  case
law  had  not  adequately  identified  less  extreme  means  of  restricting
business  method  patents.    In  disapproving  an  exclusive  machine-or-
transformation  test,  this  Court  by  no  means  desires  to  preclude  the 
Federal  Circuit’s  development  of  other  limiting  criteria  that  further
the  Patent  Act’s  purposes  and  are  not  inconsistent  with  its  text.
P. 16. 

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, except for Parts II–
B–2 and II–C–2.  ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined the 
opinion in full, and SCALIA, J., joined except for Parts II–B–2 and II–C– 
2.  STEVENS, J.,  filed  an  opinion  concurring  in  the  judgment,  in  which 
GINSBURG,  BREYER,  and  SOTOMAYOR,  JJ.,  joined.    BREYER,  J.,  filed  an 
opinion  concurring  in  the  judgment,  in  which  SCALIA,  J.,  joined  as  to 
Part II.