Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 29.0

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

9 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

that petitioners’ application is phrased broadly.  See ante, 
at  14–15.  But  claim  specification  is  covered  by  §112,  not 
§101; and if a series of steps constituted an unpatentable
idea  merely  because  it  was  described  without  sufficient
specificity, the Court could be calling into question some of 
our  own  prior  decisions.2    At  points,  the  opinion  suggests 
that novelty is the clue.  See ante, at 14.  But the fact that 
hedging  is  “ ‘long  prevalent  in  our  system  of  commerce,’ ” 
ibid., cannot justify the Court’s conclusion, as “the proper 
construction  of  §101  . . .  does  not  involve  the  familiar 
issu[e]  of  novelty”  that  arises  under  §102.    Flook,  437 
U. S.,  at  588.  At  other  points,  the  opinion  for  a  plurality
suggests that the analysis turns on the category of patent 
involved.  See,  e.g.,  ante,  at  12  (courts  should  use  the
abstract-idea  rule  as  a  “too[l]”  to  set  “a  high  enough  bar”
“when  considering  patent  applications  of  this  sort”).    But 
we  have  never  in  the  past  suggested  that  the  inquiry
varies by subject matter.     

The  Court,  in  sum,  never  provides  a  satisfying  account
of  what  constitutes  an  unpatentable  abstract  idea.    In-
deed,  the  Court  does  not  even  explain  if  it  is  using  the
machine-or-transformation criteria.  The Court essentially
asserts  its  conclusion  that  petitioners’  application  claims 
an  abstract  idea.    This  mode  of  analysis  (or  lack  thereof) 
may  have  led  to  the  correct  outcome  in  this  case,  but  it
also  means  that  the  Court’s  musings  on  this  issue  stand 
for very little.   

—————— 

2 For  example,  a  rule  that  broadly-phrased  claims  cannot  constitute 
patentable processes could call into question our approval of Alexander 
Graham  Bell’s  famous  fifth  claim  on  “ ‘[t]he  method  of,  and  apparatus
for,  transmitting  vocal  or  other  sounds  telegraphically,  as  herein 
described,  by  causing  electrical  undulations,  similar  in  form  to  the 
vibrations  of  the  air  accompanying  the  said  vocal  or  other  sounds,
substantially  as  set  forth,’ ”  The  Telephone  Cases,  126  U. S.  1,  531 
(1888).