2007), defining the term “physical” can be an “esoteric and metaphysical”
inquiry
.
Indeed,
although this court has struggled for years to set out what constitutes sufficient
physical transformation to render a process patentable, we have yet to provide a
consistent or satisfactory resolution of this issue.
We took this case en banc in a long-overdue effort to resolve primal questions on
the metes and bounds of statutory subject matter. The patent system has run amok, and
the USPTO, as well as the larger patent community, has actively sought guidance from
this court in making sense of our section 101 jurisprudence. See Supplemental Br. of
Appellee at 3 (“[The Federal Circuit] should clarify the meaning of State Street and AT&T,
as they have been too often misunderstood.”); Br. of Fin. Serv. Indus. at 1 (“The rise of
[business method patents] in recent years has . . . led to uncertainty over the scope of the
patents granted and, more fundamentally, the definition of patentable subject matter
itself. [We] seek a workable standard defining the scope of patentable subject matter,
one that . . . provides clear guidance to the Patent and Trademark Office . . . and the
public.”); Br. of Samuelson Law, Tech. and Public Policy Clinic at 1 (“Ever since State
Street, the [USPTO] has been flooded with applications for a wide variety of non-
technological ‘inventions’ such as arbitration methods, dating methods, tax-planning
methods, legal methods, and novel-writing methods. These applications have eroded
public confidence in the patent system and driven up the cost and decreased the return
for applicants seeking legitimate technological patents.” (footnote omitted)); Br. of Assoc.
of Am. Medical Colleges at 29 (arguing that “broad swaths of the public and certain
industry sectors” have lost respect for the patent system and that “[the Federal Circuit]
should act, even if its actions mean unsettling the settled expectations of some”). The
2007-1130
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