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Page Number: 62.0

42 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

therefore  can  be  protected  with  trade  secrecy.50    And  for  
those  methods  that  occur  in  public,  firms  that  innovate 
often  capture  long-term  benefits  from  doing  so,  thanks  to
various  first  mover  advantages,  including  lockins,  brand-
ing, and networking effects.51  Business innovation, more-
over,  generally  does  not  entail  the  same  kinds  of  risk  as 
does more traditional, technological innovation.  It gener-
ally does not require the same “enormous costs in terms of
time,  research,  and  development,”  Bicron,  416  U. S.,  at 
480, and thus does not require the same kind of “compen-
sation  to  [innovators]  for  their  labor,  toil,  and  expense,” 
Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516, 533–544 (1871).52 

Nor, in many cases, would patents on business methods 
promote  progress  by  encouraging  “public  disclosure.” 
Pfaff,  525  U.  S.,  at  63;  see  also  Brenner  v.  Manson,  383 
U. S. 519, 533 (1966) (“[O]ne of the purposes of the patent 
system  is  to  encourage  dissemination  of  information  con-
cerning  discoveries  and  inventions”).    Many  business
methods  are  practiced  in  public,  and  therefore  a  patent 
does  not  necessarily  encourage  the  dissemination  of  any-
thing  not  already  known.  And  for  the  methods  practiced
in  private,  the  benefits  of  disclosure  may  be  small:  Many
such  methods  are  distributive,  not  productive—that  is, 
they  do  not  generate  any  efficiency  but  only  provide  a
means for competitors to one-up each other in a battle for
pieces  of  the  pie.    And  as  the  Court  has  explained,  “it  is 
—————— 

50 See R. Levin et al., Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Re-
search and Development, in 3 Brookings Papers on Econ. Activity 794–
795 (1987). 

51 See Burk & Lemley 1618; Dreyfuss 275; see generally Carrier 821–
823.  Concededly,  there  may  some  methods  of  doing  business  that  do
not confer sufficient first-mover advantages.  See Abramowicz & Duffy,
Intellectual  Property  for Market  Experimentation,  83  N. Y.  U.  L. Rev. 
337, 340–342 (2008). 

52 See Burk & Lemley 1618; Carrier 826; Olson, Taking the Utilitar-
ian  Basis  for  Patent  Law  Seriously:  The  Case  For  Restricting  Pat-
entable Subject Matter, 82 Temp. L. Rev. 181, 231 (2009).