Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 53.0

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

33 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

opinion below, the phrase “made by man” “is reminiscent” 
of a 1790’s description of the limits of English patent law,
that an “invention must be ‘made by man’ ” and cannot be 
“ ‘a philosophical principle only, neither organized or capa-
ble  of  being  organized’  from  a  patentable  manufacture.”
545  F. 3d, at  976  (quoting  Hornblower  v.  Boulton,  8  T.  R. 
95, 98 (K.  B. 1799)).   

The 1952 Act, in short, cannot be understood as expand-
ing  the  scope  of  patentable  subject  matter  by  suggesting
that  any  series  of  steps  may  be  patented  as  a  “process” 
under §101.  If anything, the Act appears to have codified 
the  conclusion  that  subject  matter  which  was  understood 
not to be patentable in 1952 was to remain unpatentable. 
Our recent  case law reinforces my view that  a series of
steps  for  conducting  business  is  not  a  “process”  under 
§101.  Since Congress passed the 1952 Act, we have never 
ruled on whether that Act authorizes patents on business
methods.  But  we  have  cast  significant  doubt  on  that 
proposition  by  giving  substantial  weight  to  the  machine-
or-transformation  test,  as  general  methods  of  doing  busi-
ness do not pass that test.  And more recently, Members of
this  Court  have  noted  that  patents  on  business  methods 
are of “suspect validity.”  eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L. L. 
C., 547 U. S. 388, 397 (2006) (KENNEDY, J., concurring). 

* 

* 

* 
Since  at  least  the  days  of  Assyrian  merchants,  people
have  devised  better  and  better  ways  to  conduct  business. 
Yet  it  appears  that  neither  the  Patent  Clause,  nor  early 
patent  law,  nor  the  current  §101  contemplated  or  was
publicly  understood  to  mean  that  such  innovations  are
patentable.  Although  it  may  be  difficult  to  define  with
precision  what  is  a  patentable  “process”  under  §101,  the 
historical  clues  converge  on  one  conclusion:  A  business 
method is not a “process.”  And to the extent that there is 
ambiguity, we should be mindful of our judicial role.  “[W]e