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8 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

important  clue,  an  investigative  tool,  for  determining 
whether  some  claimed  inventions  are  processes  under 
§101 ”).    Notwithstanding  this  internal  tension,  I  under-
stand the Court’s opinion to hold only that the machine-or-
transformation  test  remains  an  important  test  for  pat-
entability.  Few,  if  any,  processes  cannot  effectively  be 
evaluated using these criteria.

Third, in its discussion of an issue not contained in the 
questions  presented—whether  the  particular  series  of 
steps  in  petitioners’  application  is  an  abstract  idea—the
Court  uses  language  that  could  suggest  a  shift  in  our 
approach  to  that  issue.    Although  I  happen  to  agree  that
petitioners seek to patent an abstract idea, the Court does
not  show  how  this  conclusion  follows  “clear[ly],”  ante,  at 
15, from our case law.  The patent now before us is not for 
“[a]  principle,  in  the  abstract,”  or  a  “fundamental  truth.” 
Parker v. Flook, 437 U. S. 584, 589 (1978) (internal quota-
tion  marks  omitted).  Nor  does  it  claim  the  sort  of  phe-
nomenon of nature or abstract idea that was embodied by
the  mathematical  formula  at  issue  in  Gottschalk  v.  Ben-
son, 409 U. S. 63, 67 (1972), and in Flook. 

The Court construes petitioners’ claims on processes for 
pricing  as  claims  on  “the  basic  concept  of  hedging,  or
protecting  against  risk,”  ante,  at  14,  and  thus  discounts 
the  application’s  discussion  of  what  sorts  of  data  to  use,
and  how  to  analyze  those  data,  as  mere  “token  postsolu-
tion  components,”  ante,  at  15.    In  other  words,  the  Court 
artificially  limits  petitioners’  claims  to  hedging,  and  then
concludes  that  hedging  is  an  abstract  idea  rather  than  a
term  that  describes  a  category  of  processes  including 
petitioners’  claims.  Why  the  Court  does  this  is  never 
made  clear.  One  might  think  that  the  Court’s  analysis
means  that  any  process  that  utilizes  an  abstract  idea  is 
itself  an  unpatentable,  abstract  idea.    But  we  have  never 
suggested any such rule, which would undermine a host of 
patentable  processes.  It  is  true,  as  the  Court  observes,