Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

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

25 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

subject  matter.    See,  e.g.,  Graham,  383  U. S.,  at  9–10 
(discussing Thomas Jefferson’s observations).  It has been 
suggested,  however,  that  “[p]erhaps  this  was  in  part  a
function  of  an  understanding—shared  widely  among
legislators,  courts,  patent  office  officials,  and  inventors—
about  what  patents  were  meant  to  protect.    Everyone
knew that manufactures and machines were at the core of 
the patent system.”  Merges, Property Rights for Business 
Concepts  and  Patent  System  Reform,  14  Berkeley  Tech. 
L. J. 577, 585 (1999) (hereinafter Merges).  Thus, although
certain  processes,  such  as  those  related  to  the  technology
of  the  time,  might  have  been  considered  patentable,  it  is 
possible  that  “[a]gainst  this  background,  it  would  have
been  seen  as  absurd  for  an  entrepreneur  to  file  a  patent” 
on methods of conducting business.  Ibid. 

Development of American Patent Law 

During  the  first  years  of  the  patent  system,  no  patents
were  issued  on  methods  of  doing  business.30  Indeed,  for 
some time, there were serious doubts as to “the patentabil-
ity  of  processes  per  se,”  as  distinct  from  the  physical  end 
product or the tools used to perform a process.  Id., at 581– 
582.31 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  “ ‘first  administrator  of  our 
patent  system’ ”  and  “the  author  of  the  1793  Patent  Act.” 
Graham,  383  U. S.,  at  7.    We  have  said  that  his  “conclu-
sions  as  to  conditions  of  patentability  . . .  are  worthy  of 
note.”  Ibid. at 7.  During his time administering the sys-
tem, Jefferson “saw clearly the difficulty” of deciding what 

—————— 

30 See  Walterscheid,  To  Promote  the  Progress  173–178;  Pollack  107–

108. 

31 These doubts ended by the time of Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U. S. 780 
(1877), in which we held that “a process may be patentable irrespective
of the particular form of the instrumentalities used,” and therefore one
may patent “an act, or series of acts, performed upon the subject matter
to be transformed and reduced to a different state or thing.”  Id., at 788.