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Page Number: 32.0

12 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

argued  that  because  “a  word”  in  a  statute  “is  given  more 
precise  content  by  the  neighboring  words  with  which  it” 
associates,  United  States  v.  Williams,  553  U. S.  285,  294 
(2008),  we  may  draw  inferences  from  the  fact  that  “[t]he
other  three  statutory  categories  of  patent-eligible  subject
matter  identified  in  Section  101—‘machine,  manufacture, 
or  composition  of  matter’—all  ‘are  things  made  by  man,
and  involve  technology.’ ”    Brief  for  Respondent  26.  Spe-
cifically, the Government submits, we may infer “that the 
term  ‘process’  is  limited  to  technological  and  industrial 
methods.”  Ibid.  The  Court  rejects  this  submission  cate-
gorically,  on  the  ground  that  “§100(b)  already  explicitly 
defines  the  term  ‘process.’ ”    Ante,  at  6.  But  §100(b)  de-
fines  the  term  “process”  by  using  the  term  “process,”  as 
well  as  several  other  general  terms.  This  is  not  a  case, 
then, in which we must either “follow” a definition, ante, at 
7, or rely on neighboring words to understand the scope of 
an ambiguous term.  The definition itself contains the very
ambiguous term that we must define.

In  my  view,  the  answer  lies  in  between  the  Govern-
ment’s  and  the  Court’s  positions:  The  terms  adjacent  to
“process”  in  §101  provide  a  clue  as  to  its  meaning,  al-
though not a very strong clue.  Section 101’s list of catego-
ries of patentable subject matter is phrased in the disjunc-
tive,  suggesting  that  the  term  “process”  has  content 
distinct from the other items in the list.  It would therefore 
be  illogical  to  “rob”  the  word  “process”  of  all  independent 
meaning.  Reiter  v.  Sonotone  Corp.,  442  U. S.  330,  338 
(1979).  Moreover,  to  the  extent  we  can  draw  inferences 
about what is a “process” from common attributes in §101, 
it  is  a  dangerous  endeavor  to  do  so  on  the  basis  of  a  per-
ceived  overarching  theme.    Given the  many  moving  parts 
at  work  in  the  Patent  Act,  there  is  a  risk  of  merely  con-
firming  our  preconceived  notions  of  what  should  be  pat-
entable  or  of  seeing  common  attributes  that  track  “the 
familiar  issues  of  novelty  and  obviousness”  that  arise