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30 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

ess” was used in §101 “to clarify the present law as to the 
patentability of certain types of processes or methods as to 
which  some  insubstantial  doubts  have  been  expressed.”
S. Rep.  1979,  at  5;  accord,  H.  Rep.  1923,  at  6.   And  both 
noted that those terms were used to convey the prevailing 
meaning  of  the  term  “art,”  “as  interpreted”  by  courts,
S. Rep.  1979,  at  17;  accord,  H.  Rep.  1923,  at  17.    Indeed, 
one  of  the  main  drafters  of  the  Act  explained  that  the
definition of the term “process” in §100(b) reflects “how the 
courts  have  construed  the  term  ‘art.’ ”    Tr.  of  address  by
Judge Giles S. Rich to the New York Patent Law Associa-
tion 7–8 (Nov. 6, 1952).

As discussed above, by this time, courts had consistently
construed  the  term  “art”  to  exclude  methods  of  doing 
business.  The  1952  Act  likely  captured  that  same  mean-
ing.38    Cf.  Graham,  383  U. S.,  at  16–17  (reasoning  that 
because a provision of the 1952 Act “paraphrases language 
which has  often been used in decisions of the courts” and 
was “added to the statute for uniformity and definiteness, ” 
that provision should be treated as “a codification of judi-
cial  precedents”).39    Indeed,  Judge  Rich,  the  main  drafter 
—————— 

38 The  1952  Act  also  retained  the  language  “invents  or  discovers,” 
which  by  that  time  had  taken  on  a  connotation  that  would  tend  to
exclude  business  methods.    See  B.  Evans  &  C.  Evans,  A  Dictionary  of
Contemporary  Usage  137  (1957)  (explaining  that  “discover;  invent”
means “to make or create something new, especially, in modern usage, 
something ingeniously devised to perform mechanical operations”). 

39 As  explained  in  Part  II,  supra,  the  Court  engages  in  a Jekyll-and-
Hyde form of interpretation with respect to the word “process” in §101.
It  rejects  the  interpretation  I  proffer  because  the  words  “process”  and 
“method”  do  not,  on  their  face,  distinguish  between  different  series  of 
acts.  Ante, at 10.  But it also rejects many sorts of processes without a
textual  basis  for  doing  so.    See  ante,  at  4–5,  7,  12–15.    And  while  the 
Courts  rests  a  great  deal  of  weight  on  Parker  v.  Flook,  437  U. S.  584 
(1978),  for  its  analysis  of  abstract  ideas,  the  Court  minimizes  Flook’s 
rejection of “a purely literal reading of §101,” as well as Flook’s reliance 
on the historical backdrop of §101 and our understanding of what “the 
statute was enacted to protect,” id., at 588–590, 593; see also Diamond