Opinion ID: 209543
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: In Diamond v. Chakrabarty the Court again rejected per se exclusions of subject matter from Section 101

Text: In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 100 S.Ct. 2204, 65 L.Ed.2d 144 (1980), the scope of Section 101 was challenged as applied to the new fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering, with respect to the patent eligibility of a new bacterial life form. The Court explained the reason for the broad terms of Section 101: The subject-matter provisions of the patent law have been cast in broad terms to fulfill the constitutional and statutory goal of promoting the Progress of Science and the useful Arts with all that means for the social and economic benefits envisioned by Jefferson. Broad general language is not necessarily ambiguous when congressional objectives require broad terms. Id. at 315, 100 S.Ct. 2204 (quoting U.S. Const., art. I,  8). The Court referred to the use of any in Section 101 (Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process . . . or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title), and reiterated that the statutory language shows that Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope. Id. at 308, 100 S.Ct. 2204. The Court referred to the legislative intent to include within the scope of Section 101 anything under the sun that is made by man, id. at 309, 100 S.Ct. 2204 (citing S. Rep. 82-1979, at 5, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1952, pp. 2394, 2399; H.R. Rep. 82-1923, at 6 (1952)), and stated that the unforeseeable future should not be inhibited by judicial restriction of the broad general language of Section 101: A rule that unanticipated inventions are without protection would conflict with the core concept of the patent law that anticipation undermines patentability. Mr. Justice Douglas reminded that the inventions most benefiting mankind are those that push back the frontiers of chemistry, physics, and the like. Congress employed broad general language in drafting  101 precisely because such inventions are often unforeseeable. Id. at 315-16, 100 S.Ct. 2204 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The Court emphasized that its precedents did not alter this understanding of Section 101's breadth, stating that  Flook did not announce a new principle that inventions in areas not contemplated by Congress when the patent laws were enacted are unpatentable per se.  Id. at 315, 100 S.Ct. 2204. Whether the applications of physics and chemistry that are manifested in advances in computer hardware and software were more or less foreseeable than the advances in biology and biotechnology is debatable, but it is not debatable that these fields of endeavor have become primary contributors to today's economy and culture, as well as offering an untold potential for future advances. My colleagues offer no reason now to adopt a policy of exclusion of the unknown future from the subject matter now embraced in Section 101. Soon after Chakrabarty was decided, the Court returned to patentability issues arising from computer capabilities: