Each of the five categories of patentable subject matter recognized by the 1793
Patent Act—(1) “manufacture,” (2) “machine,” (3) ”composition of matter,” (4) “any new
and useful improvement,” and (5) “art”—was drawn either from the Statute of
Monopolies and the common law refinement of its interpretation or resolved competing
views being debated in England at the time. See To Promote the Progress, supra n.4 at
239.
“Manufacture.” At the most basic level, the 1793 Act, like the Statute of
Monopolies, expressly provided for the patentability of “manufactures.” This language
was not accidental, but rather reflected a conscious adoption of that term as it was used
in the English practice. Id. (“It is clear that the Congress sought to incorporate into the
U.S. statutory scheme in 1793 at least as much of the common law interpretation of
‘new manufactures’ as was understood at the time.”).
“Machine.” Likewise, the category of “machines” in the 1793 Act had long been
understood to be within the term “manufactures” as used in the English statute. See id.;
see, e.g., Morris v. Bramson, 1 Carp. P.C. 30, 31 (K.B. 1776) (sustaining a patent “for
an engine or machine on which is fixed a set of working needles. . . for the making of
eyelet-holes”) (emphasis added); MacLeod, supra n.8 at 101 (noting, among numerous
other early machine patents, seven patents on “machinery to raise coal and ores”
before 1750).
“Composition of Matter.” Although the 1790 statute did not explicitly include
“compositions of matter,” this was remedied in the 1793 statute. At the time,
“compositions of matter” were already understood to be a type of manufacture
patentable under the English statute. See To Promote the Progress, supra n.4, at
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