Court Opinion

ID: 9487268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:12:06.936742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:10.506908
License: Public Domain

RADER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join Judge Rich’s opinion holding that this court has subject matter jurisdiction over this appeal and reversing the reconstituted Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences’ decision on the merits. While I fully agree with Judge Rich that Alappat’s claimed invention falls squarely within the scope of 35 U.S.C. § 101 (1988), I write to clarify that this conclusion does not hinge on whether Alappat’s invention is classified as machine or process under section 101.
The reconstituted Board determined that applicants’ (Alappat’s) invention is a process excluded from the subject matter of 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Board concluded that the invention is a “mathematical algorithm” rather than a patentable machine. The Board reached this conclusion by impermissibly expanding the scope of the claimed subject matter, thereby running afoul of 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 6 (1988). See In re Donaldson Co., 16 F.3d 1189, 1193, 29 USPQ2d 1845, 1848 (Fed.Cir.1994) (in banc). Not surprisingly, the initial Board found no problem with 35 U.S.C. § 101 when the claims were properly interpreted in light of the specification.
Judge Rich, with whom I fully concur, reads Alappat’s application as claiming a machine. In fact, whether the invention is a process or a machine is irrelevant. The language of the Patent Act itself, as well as Supreme Court rulings, clarifies that Alap-pat’s invention fits comfortably within 35 U.S.C. § 101 whether viewed as a process or a machine.
Section 101 of the Patent Act states:
*1582Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, including improvements, may thus receive patent protection. Section 101 explicitly covers both processes and machines. Furthermore, according to the Supreme Court, “any” is an expansive term encompassing “ ‘anything under the sun that is made by man.’ ” Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 309, 100 S.Ct. 2204, 2208, 65 L.Ed.2d 144 (1980) (quoting S.Rep. No. 1979, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1952); H.R.Rep. No. 1923, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 6 (1952)). Section 101 does not suggest that patent protection extends to some subcategories of processes or machines and not to others. The Act simply does not extend coverage to some new and useful inventions and deny it to others.
Indeed, the Supreme Court has clarified that section 101 means what it says: any new and useful invention is entitled to patent protection, subject to the remaining statutory conditions for patentability. See Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 182, 101 S.Ct. 1048, 1054, 67 L.Ed.2d 155 (1981). In determining what qualifies as patentable subject matter, the Supreme Court has drawn the distinction between inventions and mere discoveries. On the unpatentable discovery side fall “laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 185, 101 S.Ct. at 1056. On the patentable invention side fall anything that is “not nature’s handiwork, but [the inventor’s] own.” Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 310, 100 S.Ct. at 2208. While Judge Rich correctly applies these principles to machines, they apply with equal force to processes.
The dividing line between patentable invention and mere discovery applies equally well to algorithmic inventions. In Diehr, the Court indicated that in special cases, an algorithm is tantamount to a “law of nature” and therefore non-statutory. Diehr, 450 U.S. at 186, 101 S.Ct. at 1056. However, the Court noted that “[t]he term ‘algorithm’ is subject to a variety of definitions.” Id. at 186 n. 9, 101 S.Ct. at 1056 n. 9. The Court refused to expand the term “algorithm” beyond the narrow definition employed in Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 65, 93 S.Ct. 253, 254, 34 L.Ed.2d 273 (1972) and Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 589, 98 S.Ct. 2522, 2525, 57 L.Ed.2d 451 (1978), two cases in which the Court ruled the inventions non-statutory:
[The petitioner’s] definition is significantly broader than the definition this Court employed in Benson and Flook. Our previous decisions regarding the patentability of “algorithms” are necessarily limited to the more narrow definition employed by the Court, and we do not pass judgment on whether processes falling outside the definition previously used by this Court, but within the definition offered by the petitioner, would be patentable subject matter.
Diehr, 450 U.S. at 186 n. 9, 101 S.Ct. at 1056 n. 9.
Thus, in Diehr, the Court specifically confined the holdings of Benson and Flook to the facts of those cases. Significantly, the Court thereby refused to classify all algorithms as non-statutory subject matter. Only algorithms which merely represent discovered principles are excluded from section 101. The inventions in Benson and Flook involved such algorithms. In Benson, the invention was simply a way to solve a general mathematics problem; in Flook the invention was a way to obtain a number. Diehr, 450 U.S. at 185-86, 101 S.Ct. at 1056. In pronouncing the severe confinement of the earlier decisions, the Supreme Court restored the Patent Act’s clear meaning that processes and machines are patentable subject matter even if they include an algorithm. In the wake of Diehr and Chakrabarty, the Supreme Court only denies patentable subject matter status to algorithms which are, in fact, simply laws of nature.
Moreover, “a claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become non-statutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program or digital computer.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187, 101 S.Ct. at 1057. Viewing the claim as a whole, if a digital circuit or its use would define an invention under section 101, then the same *1583invention described in terms of “a mathematical formula, computer program or digital computer” should be statutory subject matter as well. Neither Alappat’s digital circuit, nor a mathematical algorithm that replaces it in a computer, is a “fundamental law of nature” excluded from the scope of section 101. In sum, section 101 is no bar to Alappat whether his invention is a machine — which it is — or a process — which it employs.
The limits on patentable subject matter within section 101 do not depend on whether an invention can be expressed as a mathematical relationship or algorithm. Mathematics is simply a form of expression — a language. As this court’s predecessor pointed out:
[S]ome mathematical algorithms and for-mulae do not represent scientific principles or laws of nature; they represent ideas or mental processes and are simply logical vehicles for communicating possible solutions to complex problems.
In re Meyer, 688 F.2d 789, 794-95, 215 USPQ 193, 197 (CCPA 1982).
The Supreme Court’s Diehr doctrine in effect recognizes that inventors are their own lexicographers. Therefore, inventors may express their inventions in any manner they see fit, including mathematical symbols and algorithms. Whether an inventor calls the invention a machine or a process is not nearly as important as the invention itself. Thus, the inventor can describe the invention in terms of a dedicated circuit or a process that emulates that circuit. Indeed, the line of demarcation between a dedicated circuit and a computer algorithm accomplishing the identical task is frequently blurred and is becoming increasingly so as the technology develops. In this field, a software process is often interchangeable with a hardware circuit. Thus, the Board’s insistence on recon-struing Alappat’s machine claims as processes is misguided when the technology recognizes no difference and the Patent Act treats both as patentable subject matter.
The Supreme Court has frequently cautioned that “courts ‘should not read into the patent laws limitations and conditions which the legislature has not expressed.’ ” Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 308, 100 S.Ct. at 2207 (quoting United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U.S. 178, 199, 53 S.Ct. 554, 561, 77 L.Ed. 1114 (1933)). This same counsel applies to the Board. The Board has no justification within the Patent Act to ignore algorithmic processes or machines as “useful Arts” within the scope of section 101. U.S. Const, art. I, § 8. This court should not permit the Patent and Trademark Office to administratively emasculate research and development in this area by precluding statutory protection for algorithmic inventions.
The applicants of the instant invention do not seek to patent a mathematical formula. They seek protection for an invention that displays a smooth line on an oscilloscope. Although Alappat’s machine or process might employ an equation, it does not pre-empt that equation. Consequently, whether the invention is called a machine or a process is inconsequential. For these reasons, I agree with this court’s reversal of the reconstituted Board’s decision.
SCHALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting, with whom CLEVENGER, Circuit Judge, joins.
I respectfully dissent. I believe that the decision on reconsideration is invalid because the grant of reconsideration was not by the full membership of the Patent and Trademark Office Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“Board”), as required by statute. Accordingly, we are without jurisdiction to hear Alappat’s appeal because it is not from a decision of the Board within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A) (1988).
The pertinent statutory provisions are found at 35 U.S.C. §§ 7(a) and 7(b) (1988):
(a) .... The Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner, the Assistant Commissioners, and the examiners-in-chief shall constitute the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences.
(b) The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences shall, on written appeal of an applicant, review adverse decisions of examiners upon applications for patents.... Each appeal ... shall be heard by at least three members of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, who shall be designated by the Commissioner. Only *1584the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has the authority to grant rehearings.
The statutory scheme is straightforward. An adverse decision of an examiner is appealed to the Board. Thereafter, the Board hears the appeal through a panel of at least three members, who are designated by the Commissioner. Following the panel’s decision, “[o]nly the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has the authority to grant rehearings.”1 Finally, the statute provides that the “Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences” consists of “[t]he Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner, the Assistant Commissioners, and the examiners-in-chief.”
When statutory interpretation is at issue, if “the language of. the statute is clear and fits the case, the plain meaning of the statute will be regarded as conclusive.” VE Holding Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co., 917 F.2d 1574, 1579, 16 USPQ2d 1614, 1618 (Fed. Cir.1990). Here, the plain language of the statute compels the conclusion that only the full Board — which currently has roughly 43 members (the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner, about two Assistant Commissioners, and about 39 Examiners-in-Chief2) — has authority to grant rehearings. For present purposes, the critical word is “Only,” appearing at the beginning of the third sentence of § 7(b). The use of this word and its location in the statute say to me that Congress intended to draw a distinction between the initial hearing of an appeal— which is to be heard by “at least three members of the Board ..., who shall be designated by the Commissioner” — and a rehearing— which “[o]nly” the full Board may grant.3 I simply can see no other way to read the statute.
It is undisputed that, in this case, rehearing was granted by less than the full membership of the Board. For this reason, the decision on rehearing, from which Alappat has appealed, is invalid and thus is not a decision of the Board whose merits we may review. See In re Bose, 772 F.2d 866, 869, 227 USPQ 1, 3 (Fed.Cir.1985). A predicate to this court’s jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295 is that there be “an appeal from a decision of ... the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences_” 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A) (1988). Because, for the reasons stated above, Alappat’s appeal is not from a valid decision of the Board, we are without jurisdiction. I thus join that portion of Judge Mayer’s dissent which concludes that the decision of the Board on appeal is invalid because rehearing was not statutorily authorized.
The final two sentences of 35 U.S.C. § 7(b) are descended directly from section 482 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by the Act of March 2, 1927. In that statute, the final two sentences stated:
Each appeal shall be heard by at least three members of the board of appeals, the members hearing such appeal to be designated by the commissioner. The board of appeals shall have sole power to grant rehearings.
Act of March 2, 1927, ch. 273, § 3, 44 Stat. 1335, 1336.
In the 1927 statute, the board of appeals having “sole power to grant rehearings” consisted of “[t]he Commissioner of Patents, the first assistant commissioner, the assistant *1585commissioner, and the examiners in chief....” Id. At that time, there were only five examiners-in-ehief; thus, the board of patent appeals had a total of eight members. Since 1927, the size of the Board has increased. As noted above, there are now about 39 examiners-in-ehief, and the full Board has roughly 43 members. Time and events have overtaken the language of the statute. While I recognize that it is unwieldy to have it be that only the full membership of the Board can grant rehearings, that is the result which the language of the statute compels. This is a state of affairs that Congress, not the court, should remedy.4
For the foregoing reasons, I would hold that the Board’s reconsideration decision is invalid, and therefore a legal nullity. Because I think this court lacks jurisdiction to pass on the merits of this appeal, I express no views on the merits.

. I agree with the majority that the reconsideration action in this case constituted a "rehearing” as provided for in § 7(b).

. The members of the Board who are .examiners-in-chief are now called “Administrative Patent Judges.” See 1158 Official Gazette Pat.Off. 347.

. The statute does not define the word “Only.” It is a basic principle of statutory interpretation, however, that undefined terms in a statute are deemed to have their ordinarily understood meaning. See, e.g., United States v. James, 478 U.S. 597, 604, 106 S.Ct. 3116, 3120, 92 L.Ed.2d 483 (1986) (“[W]e assume that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.”) (alteration in original) (quoting American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U.S. 63, 68, 102 S.Ct. 1534, 1537, 71 L.Ed.2d 748 (1982)). For that "ordinary meaning,” we look to the dictionary. See, e.g., Board of Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 237, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 2365, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 (1990); Best Power Technology Sales Corp. v. Austin, 984 F.2d 1172, 1177 (Fed.Cir.1993). The dictionary gives the following primary definition for the word "only” when it is used as an adverb: "la: as a single solitary fact or instance or occurrence: as just the one simple thing and nothing more or different: SIMPLY, MERELY, JUST ... b: EXCLUSIVELY, SOLELY.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1577 (1986).

. In his dissent, Judge Mayer concludes that the Board is “a quasi-judicial body.” I express no views on that question. However, regardless of the nature of the Board, the manner in which it may grant "rehearings” is governed by a statute whose language is clear. For that reason, I do not believe that the issue of the validity of the reconsideration decision turns upon how one views the Board.