(holding
that a system for burial insurance contracts was not patentable because “contracts or
proposals for contracts, devised or adopted as a method of transacting a particular
class of . . . business, [are] not patentable as an art”); see also 145 Cong. Rec. H6,947
(Aug. 3, 1999) (statement of Rep. Manzullo
)
(“Before the State Street Bank and Trust
case . . . it was universally thought that methods of doing or conducting business were
not patentable items.”).
In passing the 1952 Act, Congress re-enacted statutory language that had long
existed,
thus signaling its intent to carry forward the body of case law that had
developed under prior versions of the statute. Because there is nothing in the language
of the 1952 Act, or its legislative history, to indicate that Congress intended to modify
the rule against patenting business methods, we must presume that no change in the
rule was intended. See, e.g., Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104,
108 (1991)
(“[W]here a common-law principle is well established . . . the courts may
take it as given that Congress has legislated with an expectation that the principle will
apply except when a statutory purpose to the contrary is evident.” (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted));
(“Statutes which invade the common law . . . are to be read with a presumption favoring
the retention of long-established and familiar principles, except when a statutory
purpose to the contrary is evident.”); see also In re Schrader, 22 F.3d 290, 295 (Fed.
Cir. 1994) (“When Congress approved the addition of the term ‘process’ to the
2
Congress did substitute the word “process” for “art” in the 1952 Act, but
.
” Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 184 (1981).
2007-1130
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