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20  MAYO COLLABORATIVE SERVICES v. PROMETHEUS 

LABORATORIES, INC. 
Opinion of the Court 

based  on  whether  or  not  they  will  interfere  significantly 
with innovation in other fields now or in the future.  Brief 
for  Respondent  42–46;  see  also  Lemley  1342–1344  (mak­
ing similar argument). 

But the underlying functional concern here is a relative 
one:  how  much  future  innovation  is  foreclosed  relative  to 
the  contribution  of  the  inventor.  See  supra,  at  17.  A 
patent upon a narrow law of nature may not inhibit future 
research  as  seriously  as  would  a  patent  upon  Einstein’s
law of relativity, but the creative value of the discovery is 
also  considerably  smaller.    And,  as  we  have  previously 
pointed  out,  even  a  narrow  law  of  nature  (such  as  the
one  before  us)  can  inhibit  future  research.    See  supra,  at 
17–18. 

In  any  event,  our  cases  have  not  distinguished  among 
different  laws  of  nature  according  to  whether  or  not  the 
principles  they  embody  are  sufficiently  narrow.    See,  e.g., 
Flook, 437 U. S. 584 (holding narrow mathematical formu­
la unpatentable).  And this is understandable.  Courts and 
judges  are  not  institutionally  well  suited  to  making  the
kinds  of  judgments  needed  to  distinguish  among  differ-
ent  laws  of  nature.    And  so  the  cases  have  endorsed  a 
bright-line  prohibition  against  patenting  laws  of  nature,
mathematical  formulas  and  the  like,  which  serves  as  a 
somewhat more easily administered proxy for the underlying 
“building-block” concern.

Third,  the  Government  argues  that  virtually  any  step
beyond a statement of a law of nature itself should trans­
form  an  unpatentable  law  of  nature  into  a  potentially
patentable  application  sufficient  to  satisfy  §101’s  de­
mands.  Brief  for  United  States  as  Amicus  Curiae.  The 
Government  does  not  necessarily  believe  that  claims  that
(like the claims before us) extend just minimally beyond a
law  of  nature  should  receive  patents.    But  in  its  view, 
other  statutory  provisions—those  that  insist  that  a 
claimed  process  be  novel,  35  U. S. C.  §102,  that  it  not  be