unspecified chemical reaction. 437 U.S. at 586. The Court rejected the claim as drawn
to the formula itself because the claim did not include any limitations specifying "how to
select the appropriate margin of safety, the weighting factor, or any of the other
variables . . . the chemical processes at work, the [mechanism for] monitoring of
process variables, or the means of setting off an alarm or adjusting an alarm system."
See id. at 586, 595. The claim thus was not limited to any particular chemical (or other)
transformation; nor was it tied to any specific machine or apparatus for any of its
process steps, such as the selection or monitoring of variables or the setting off or
adjusting of the alarm.
See id.
A canvas of earlier Supreme Court cases reveals that the results of those
decisions were also consistent with the machine-or-transformation test later articulated
in Benson and reaffirmed in Diehr. See Tilghman, 102 U.S. at 729 (particular process
of transforming fats into constituent compounds held patentable); Cochrane, 94 U.S. at
785-88 (process transforming grain meal into purified flour held patentable); Morse, 56
U.S. (15 How.) at 113 (process of using electromagnetism to print characters at a
distance that was not transformative or tied to any particular apparatus held
unpatentable). Interestingly, Benson presents a difficult case under its own test in that
the claimed process operated on a machine, a digital computer, but was still held to be
8
To the extent it may be argued that Flook did not explicitly follow the
machine-or-transformation test first articulated in Benson, we note that the more recent
decision in Diehr reaffirmed the machine-or-transformation test. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at
191-92. Moreover, the Diehr Court explained that Flook "presented a similar situation"
to Benson and considered it consistent with the holdings of Diehr and Benson. Diehr at
186-87, 189, 191-92. We thus follow the Diehr Court's understanding of Flook.
2007-1130 12