Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 57

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

37 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

applied to different statutes.42  The 1999 Act was passed to 
limit the impact of the Federal Circuit’s then-recent state-
ments on the 1952 Act.  Although repudiating that judicial
dictum  (as  we  should)  might  effectively  render  the  1999
Act  a  nullity  going  forward,  such  a  holding  would  not 
mean  that  it  was  a  nullity  when  Congress  enacted  it. 
Section  273  may  have  been  a  technically  unnecessary 
response to confusion about patentable subject matter, but 
it  appeared  necessary  in  1999  in  light  of  what  was  being 
discussed in legal circles at the time.43  Consider the logi-
cal  implications  of  the  Court’s  approach  to  this  question: 
If,  tomorrow,  Congress  were  to  conclude  that  patents  on
business  methods  are  so  important  that  the  special  in-
fringement  defense  in  §273  ought  to  be  abolished,  and 
thus  repealed  that  provision,  this  could  paradoxically 
strengthen  the  case  against  such  patents  because  there 
would no longer be a §273 that “acknowledges . . . business 
method patents,” ante, at 11.  That is not a sound method 
of statutory interpretation.   

In  light  of  its  history  and  purpose,  I  think  it  obvious 

—————— 

42 The  Court  opines  that  “[t]his  principle,  of  course,  applies  to  inter-
preting  any  two  provisions  in  the  U. S.  Code,  even  when  Congress 
enacted  the  provisions  at  different  times.”  Ante,  at  11  (emphasis 
added).  The only support the Court offers for this proposition is a 1937
opinion  for  three  Justices,  in  Hague  v.  Committee  for  Industrial  Or-
ganization,  307  U. S.  496,  528–530  (1939)  (opinion  of  Stone,  J.).    But 
that  opinion  is  inapposite.    Although  Justice  Stone  stated  that  two
provisions “must be read together,” id., at 530, he did so to explain that
an  ambiguity  in  a  later-in-time  statute  must  be  understood  in  light  of 
the  earlier-in-time  framework  against  which  the  ambiguous  statute 
was  passed,  id.,  at  528–530,  particularly  because  the  later  statute 
explicitly  stated  that  it  “shall  not  be  construed  to  apply”  to  the  provi-
sion created by an earlier Act, id., at 528. 

43 I  am  not  trying  to  “overcome”  an  “established  rule  of  statutory  in-
terpretation”  with  “judicial  speculation  as  to  the  subjective  intent  of 
various  legislators,”  ante,  at  11,  but,  rather,  I  am  explaining  why  the
Court  has  illogically  expanded  the  canon  upon  which  it  relies  beyond 
that canon’s logical underpinnings.