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the statutory term “process.” The court’s decision affects present and future rights and
incentives, and usurps the legislative role. The judicial role is to support stability and
predictability in the law, with fidelity to statue and precedent, and respect for the
principles of stare decisis.
Patents provide an incentive to invest in and work in new directions. In United
States v. Line Materials Co., 333 U.S. 287, 332 (1948), Justice Burton, joined by Chief
Justice Vinson and Justice Frankfurter, remarked that “the frontiers of science have
expanded until civilization now depends largely upon discoveries on those frontiers to
meet the infinite needs of the future. The United States, thus far, has taken a leading
part in making those discoveries and in putting them to use.” This remains true today.
It is antithetical to this incentive to restrict eligibility for patenting to what has been done
in the past, and to foreclose what might be done in the future.