Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

16 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

Opinion of the Court 

use  of  well-known  random  analysis  techniques  to  help 
establish  some  of  the  inputs  into  the  equation.    Indeed, 
these  claims  add  even  less  to  the  underlying  abstract
principle  than  the  invention  in  Flook  did,  for  the  Flook 
invention was at least directed to the narrower domain of 
signaling dangers in operating a catalytic converter. 

* 

* 

* 
Today,  the  Court  once  again  declines  to  impose  limita-
tions on the Patent Act that are inconsistent with the Act’s 
text.  The  patent  application  here  can  be  rejected  under
our  precedents  on  the  unpatentability  of  abstract  ideas.
The Court, therefore, need not define further what consti-
tutes a patentable “process,” beyond pointing to the defini-
tion  of  that  term  provided  in  §100(b)  and  looking  to  the 
guideposts in Benson, Flook, and Diehr. 

And nothing in today’s opinion should be read as endors-
ing  interpretations  of  §101  that  the  Court  of  Appeals  for
the  Federal  Circuit  has  used  in  the  past.    See,  e.g.,  State 
Street, 149 F. 3d, at 1373; AT&T Corp., 172 F. 3d, at 1357. 
It  may  be  that  the  Court  of  Appeals  thought  it  needed  to
make  the  machine-or-transformation  test  exclusive  pre-
cisely  because  its  case  law  had  not  adequately  identified
less  extreme  means  of  restricting  business  method  pat-
ents,  including  (but  not  limited  to)  application  of  our 
opinions in Benson, Flook, and Diehr.  In disapproving an
exclusive machine-or-transformation test, we by no means
foreclose the Federal Circuit’s development of other limit-
ing  criteria  that  further  the  purposes  of  the  Patent  Act
and are not inconsistent with its text. 

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. 

It is so ordered.