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14 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

Opinion of the Court 

Benson.  The applicant there attempted to patent a proce-
dure  for  monitoring  the  conditions  during  the  catalytic
conversion  process  in  the  petrochemical  and  oil-refining
industries.  The application’s only innovation was reliance
on  a  mathematical  algorithm.  437  U. S.,  at  585–586. 
Flook  held  the  invention  was  not  a  patentable  “process.” 
The  Court  conceded  the  invention  at  issue,  unlike  the 
algorithm in Benson, had been limited so that it could still 
be  freely  used  outside  the  petrochemical  and  oil-refining 
industries.  437  U. S.,  at  589–590.   Nevertheless,  Flook 
rejected “[t]he notion that post-solution activity, no matter 
how  conventional  or  obvious  in  itself,  can  transform  an 
unpatentable  principle  into  a  patentable  process.”    Id.,  at 
590.  The Court concluded that the process at issue there 
was  “unpatentable  under  §101,  not  because  it  contain[ed] 
a mathematical algorithm as one component, but because 
once that algorithm [wa]s assumed to be  within the prior
art, the application, considered as a whole, contain[ed] no 
patentable  invention.”  Id.,  at  594.    As  the  Court  later 
explained, Flook stands for the proposition that the prohi-
bition against patenting abstract ideas “cannot be circum-
vented  by  attempting  to  limit  the  use  of  the  formula  to  a 
particular technological environment” or adding “insignifi-
cant postsolution activity.”  Diehr, 450 U. S., at 191–192. 
  Finally,  in  Diehr,  the  Court  established  a  limitation  on 
the principles articulated in Benson and Flook.  The appli-
cation in Diehr claimed a previously unknown method for 
“molding  raw,  uncured  synthetic  rubber  into  cured  preci-
sion products,” using a mathematical formula to complete 
some of its several steps by way of a computer.  450 U. S., 
at 177.  Diehr explained that while an abstract idea, law of
nature,  or  mathematical  formula  could  not  be  patented,
“an  application  of  a  law  of  nature  or  mathematical  for-
mula to a known structure or process may well be deserv-
ing  of  patent  protection.”    Id.,  at  187.  Diehr  emphasized