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Page Number: 69.0

2 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

BREYER, J., concurring in judgment 

with both the opinion of the Court and JUSTICE STEVENS’ 
opinion concurring in the judgment: 

First, although the  text of §101 is broad, it is not  with-
out limit.  See ante, at 4–5 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 
10 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment).  “[T]he underly-
ing policy of the patent system [is] that ‘the things which
are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive
patent,’  .  .  .  must  outweigh  the  restrictive  effect  of  the 
limited  patent  monopoly.”  Graham  v.  John  Deere  Co.  of 
Kansas  City,  383  U. S.  1,  10–11  (1966)  (quoting  Letter 
from  Thomas  Jefferson  to  Isaac  McPherson  (Aug.  13,
1813), in 6 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 181 (H. Washing-
ton ed.)).  The Court has thus been careful in interpreting
the  Patent  Act  to  “determine  not  only  what  is  protected,
but also what is free for all to use.”   Bonito Boats, Inc.  v. 
Thunder  Craft  Boats,  Inc.,  489  U. S.  141,  151  (1989).    In 
particular,  the  Court  has  long  held  that  “[p]henomena  of 
nature,  though  just  discovered,  mental  processes,  and 
abstract  intellectual  concepts  are  not  patentable”  under 
§101,  since  allowing  individuals  to  patent  these  funda-
mental  principles  would  “wholly  pre-empt”  the  public’s
access  to  the  “basic  tools  of  scientific  and  technological
work.”  Gottschalk  v.  Benson,  409  U. S.  63,  67,  72  (1972); 
see also, e.g., Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U. S. 175, 185 (1981); 
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U. S. 303, 309 (1980). 

Second,  in  a  series  of  cases  that  extend  back  over  a 
century,  the  Court  has  stated  that  “[t]ransformation  and 
reduction  of  an  article  to  a  different  state  or  thing  is  the 
clue  to  the  patentability  of  a  process  claim  that  does  not 
include  particular  machines.”  Diehr,  supra,  at  184  (em-
phasis added; internal quotation marks omitted); see also, 
e.g.,  Benson,  supra,  at  70;  Parker  v.  Flook,  437  U. S.  584, 
588,  n. 9  (1978);  Cochrane  v.  Deener,  94  U. S.  780,  788 
(1877).  Application of this test, the so-called “machine-or-
transformation test,” has thus repeatedly helped the Court
to determine what is “a patentable ‘process.’ ” Flook, supra,