Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 39.0

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

19 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

known  about  particular  patents  only  if  they  were  well 
publicized or subject to reported litigation.  So far as I am 
aware,  no  published  cases  pertained  to  patents  on  busi-
ness methods. 

Also  noteworthy  is  what  was  not  patented  under  the
English  system.  During  the  17th  and  18th  centuries, 
Great Britain saw innovations in business organization,17 
business  models,18  management  techniques,19  and  novel 
solutions  to  the  challenges  of  operating  global  firms  in 
which  subordinate  managers  could  be  reached  only  by  a 
long sea voyage.20  Few if any of these methods of conduct-
ing business were patented.21 
—————— 

Patent  Grant,  Past  and  Present,  13  L. Q.  Rev.  313,  318  (1897)));
MacLeod  1,  61–62  (explaining  the  dearth  of  clear  case  law);  see  also 
Boulton v. Bull, 2 H. Bl. 463, 491, 126 Eng. Rep. 651, 665 (C. P. 1795)
(Eyre,  C.  J.)  (“Patent  rights  are  no  where  that  I  can  find  accurately 
discussed in our books”). 

17 See, e.g., A. DuBois, The English Business Company After the Bub-
ble  Act,  1720–1800,  pp.   38–40,  435–438  (1938);  Harris,  The  Bubble
Act:  Its  Passage  and  its  Effects  on  Business  Organization,  54  J.  Econ.
Hist. 610, 624–625 (1994). 

18 See  Pollack  97–100.    For  example,  those  who  held  patents  on  oil
lamps  developed  firms  that  contracted  to  provide  street  lighting.    See 
M.  Falkus,  Lighting  in  the  Dark  Ages  of  English  Economic  History:
Town Streets before the Industrial Revolutions, in Trade, Government, 
and  Economy  in  Pre-Industrial  England  249,  255–257,  259–260  (D.
Coleman & A. John eds. 1976). 

19 See, e.g., G. Hammersley, The State and the English Iron Industry
in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries,  in  id.,  at  166,  173,  175– 
178  (describing  the  advent  of  management  techniques  for  efficiently 
running a major ironworks). 

20 See,  e.g.,  Carlos  &  Nicholas,  Agency  Problems  in  Early  Chartered 
Companies: The Case of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 50 J. Econ. Hist. 
853, 853–875 (1990). 

21 Nor, so far as I can tell, were business method patents common in
the  United  States  in  the  brief  period  between  independence  and  the 
creation of our Constitution—despite the fact that it was a time of great 
business  innovation,  including  new  processes  for  engaging  in  risky
trade  and  transport,  one  of  which  has  been  called  “the  quintessential
business innovation of the 1780s.”  T. Doerflinger, A Vigorous Spirit of