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2 

MAYO COLLABORATIVE SERVICES v. PROMETHEUS 

LABORATORIES, INC.
 
Opinion of the Court 

not patent his celebrated law that E=mc2; nor could New­
ton have patented the law of gravity.  Such discoveries are 
‘manifestations of . . . nature, free to all men and reserved 
exclusively to none.’ ”  Chakrabarty, supra, at 309 (quoting 
Funk  Brothers  Seed  Co.  v.  Kalo  Inoculant  Co.,  333  U. S. 
127, 130 (1948)).

“Phenomena  of  nature,  though  just  discovered,  mental 

processes,  and  abstract  intellectual  concepts  are  not  pa­
tentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and tech­
nological  work.”  Gottschalk  v.  Benson,  409  U. S.  63,  67 
(1972).  And  monopolization  of  those  tools  through  the
grant  of  a  patent  might  tend  to  impede  innovation  more 
than it would tend to promote it.

The  Court  has  recognized,  however,  that  too  broad  an
interpretation of this exclusionary principle could eviscer­
ate  patent  law.    For  all  inventions  at  some  level  embody,
use,  reflect,  rest  upon,  or  apply  laws  of  nature,  natural
phenomena,  or  abstract  ideas.    Thus,  in  Diehr  the  Court 
pointed  out  that  “ ‘a  process  is  not  unpatentable  simply 
because  it  contains  a  law  of  nature  or  a  mathematical 
algorithm.’ ”    450  U. S.,  at  187  (quoting  Parker  v.  Flook, 
437  U. S.  584,  590  (1978)).    It  added  that  “an  application 
of  a  law  of  nature  or  mathematical  formula  to  a  known 
structure  or  process  may  well  be  deserving  of  patent  pro­
tection.”  Diehr, supra, at 187.  And it emphasized Justice 
Stone’s similar observation in Mackay Radio & Telegraph 
Co. v. Radio Corp. of America, 306 U. S. 86 (1939): 

“ ‘While  a  scientific  truth,  or  the  mathematical  ex­
pression  of  it,  is  not  a  patentable  invention,  a  novel 
and  useful  structure  created  with  the  aid  of 
knowledge  of  scientific  truth  may  be.’ ”  450  U. S.,  at 
188 (quoting Mackay Radio, supra, at  94). 

See  also  Funk  Brothers,  supra,  at  130  (“If  there  is  to  be 
invention  from  [a  discovery  of  a  law  of  nature],  it  must 
come  from  the  application  of  the  law  of  nature  to  a  new