Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-1150.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  566 U. S. ____ (2012) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

monopolize the law of nature itself.  A patent, for example,
could  not  simply  recite  a  law  of  nature  and  then  add  the 
instruction  “apply  the  law.”  Einstein,  we  assume,  could 
not  have  patented  his  famous  law  by  claiming  a  process 
consisting of simply telling linear accelerator operators to
refer to the law to determine how much energy an amount
of mass has produced (or vice versa).  Nor could Archime­
des  have  secured  a  patent  for  his  famous  principle  of 
flotation by claiming a process consisting of simply telling 
boat  builders  to  refer  to  that  principle  in  order  to  deter­
mine whether an object will float.

What else is there in the claims before us?  The process 
that  each  claim  recites  tells  doctors  interested  in  the 
subject about the correlations that the researchers discov­
ered.  In  doing  so,  it  recites  an  “administering”  step,  a
“determining” step, and a “wherein” step.  These addition­
al  steps  are  not  themselves  natural  laws  but  neither  are
they sufficient to transform the nature of the claim.

First,  the  “administering”  step  simply  refers  to  the
relevant audience, namely doctors who treat patients with
certain  diseases  with  thiopurine  drugs.  That  audience  is 
a  pre-existing  audience;  doctors  used  thiopurine  drugs  to
treat  patients  suffering  from  autoimmune  disorders  long 
before  anyone  asserted  these  claims.  In  any  event,  the
“prohibition  against  patenting  abstract  ideas  ‘cannot  be
circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the formula 
to a particular technological environment.’ ”  Bilski, supra, 
at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  14)  (quoting  Diehr,  450  U. S.,  at  191– 
192).

Second, the “wherein” clauses simply tell a doctor about
the  relevant  natural  laws,  at  most  adding  a  suggestion
that he should take those laws into account when treating
his patient.  That is to say, these clauses tell the relevant
audience about the laws while trusting them to use those 
laws  appropriately  where  they  are  relevant  to  their  deci­
sionmaking (rather like Einstein telling linear accelerator