Id. at 189-90 (footnote omitted) (quoting In re Bergy, 596 F.2d 952, 961 (C.C.P.A.
1979)).
“Process” is defined in the 1952 statute as follows:
35 U.S.C. §100(b) The term “process” means process, art or method, and
includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture,
composition of matter, or material.
The 1952 Patent Act replaced the word “art” in prior statutes with the word
“process,” while the rest of Section 101 was unchanged from earlier statutes.
The legislative history for the 1952 Act explained that “art” had been “interpreted
by courts to be practically synonymous with process or method.” S. Rep. No. 82-
1979 (1952), reprinted in 1952 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2394, 2398, 2409-10. In Diehr the
Court explained that a process “has historically enjoyed patent protection
because it was considered a form of ‘art’ as that term was used in the 1793 Act.”
450 U.S. at 182.
The definition of “process” provided at 35 U.S.C. §100(b) is not “unhelpful,” as
this court now states, maj. op. at 6 n.3, but rather points up the errors in the court’s new
statutory interpretation. Section 100(b) incorporates the prior usage “art” and the term
“method,” and places no restriction on the definition. This court’s redefinition of
“process” as limiting access to the patent system to those processes that use specific
machinery or that transform matter, is contrary to two centuries of statutory definition.
The breadth of Section 101 and its predecessor provisions reflects the legislative
intention to accommodate not only known fields of creativity, but also the unknown
future. The Court has consistently refrained from imposing unwarranted restrictions on
statutory eligibility, and for computer-implemented processes the Court has explicitly
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