Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 51

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

31 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

of  the  1952  Act,  later  explained  that  “the  invention  of  a 
more  effective  organization  of  the  materials  in,  and  the
techniques  of  teaching  a  course  in  physics,  chemistry,  or 
Russian is not a patentable invention because it is outside
of  the  enumerated  categories  of  ‘process,  machine,  manu-
facture,  or  composition  of  matter,  or  any  new  and  useful
improvement  thereof.’ ”    Principles  of  Patentability,  28
Geo.  Wash.  L. Rev.  393,  394  (1960).    “Also  outside  that 
group,”  he  added,  was  a  process  for  doing  business:  “the 
greatest  inventio[n]  of  our  times,  the  diaper  service.” 
Ibid.40 

“Anything Under the Sun” 

Despite  strong  evidence  that  Congress  has  consistently 
authorized  patents  for  a  limited  class  of  subject  matter 
and that the 1952 Act did not alter the nature of the then-
existing  limits,  petitioners  and  their  amici  emphasize  a
single  phrase  in  the  Act’s  legislative  history,  which  sug-
gests  that  the  statutory  subject  matter  “ ‘include[s]  any-
thing  under  the  sun  that  is  made  by  man.’ ”    Brief  for 
Petitioners 19 (quoting Chakrabarty, 447 U. S., at 309, in 
turn  quoting  S. Rep.  1979,  at  5).    Similarly,  the  Court 
relies  on  language  from  our  opinion  in  Chakrabarty  that 
was based in part on this piece of legislative history.  See 
ante, at 4, 6. 

This  reliance  is  misplaced.    We  have  never  understood 

—————— 

v.  Diehr,  450  U. S.  175,  192  (1981)  (explaining  that  a  “claim  satisfies 
the requirements of §101” when it “is performing a function which the 
patent laws were designed to protect”). 

40 Forty years later, Judge Rich authored the State Street opinion that
some have understood to make business methods patentable.  But State 
Street  dealt  with  whether  a  piece  of  software  could  be  patented  and
addressed only claims directed at machines, not processes.  His opinion 
may therefore be better understood merely as holding that an otherwise
patentable  process  is  not  unpatentable  simply  because  it  is  directed
toward  the  conduct  of  doing  business—an  issue  the  Court  has  no 
occasion to address today.  See State Street, 149 F. 3d, at 1375.